Taco Salad

We eat a lot of these full-plate salads on the boat, and the habit has carried over to our time on land. My husband doesn't like any cooked vegetables at all, but he'll eat almost any vegetable raw, so salads are a great way to give him the vegetables he needs. I mix up the vegetables depending on what I have, but the calorie content almost always comes out within a few calories either way. This taco salad is one of our favorites, but I had to find a way to lighten it up for Noom. I usually use Doritos and real sour cream, both of which are high in calories and fat. I substituted the Tiara white corn taco shells for the Doritos, and Fage 0% Greek Yogurt for the sour cream. The Fage yogurt has been a lifesaver for me on Noom. It has a taste very close to sour cream. The only other thing I did to lighten it up some was to drain the meat well and rinse it in hot water just a touch before adding the salsa and spices.

Taco Salad: 411 calories for a full 11" dinner plate

3 cups chopped Romaine lettuce, 24 calories
1/4 red pepper, diced, 8 calories
1 stalk celery, sliced, 3 calories
1/4 cucumber sliced thin, 12 calories
1/4 cup Kraft 2% Mexican style shredded cheese, 80 calories
3 oz ground chuck, browned, draned, and rinsed, 170 calories
2 Tbl Full Circle black bean and corn salsa, 15 calories
2 Tiara white corn taco shells heated and crushed, 56 calories
1/3 cup Fage 0% Greek Yogurt 43 calories
Seasonings of choice. I used salt, pepper, garlic powder, onion powder, chili powder, cumin, and smoked paprika on the meat.

Layer lettuce and veggies on a large dinner plate. Brown beef, drain, and rinse with hot water briefly. Return to skillet and add salsa and seasonings. Stir and cook on low till seasonings are fragrant. Add to salad and top with cheese and yogurt.

Shrimp Fried Rice

I love shrimp, but my husband is allergic to all types of shellfish so it limits how often I can have it and when. Since starting Noom, I've taken to fixing it for lunch frequently so I can watch the cleanup. Shrimp is a delightfully low calorie food so it's finding its way into more of my meals.  This one I made for lunch with a lower calorie count, only using a 1/2 cup of brown rice, but it really wasn't enough rice. I'll make it as a dinner meal next time and use a whole cup of brown rice. I also realized long after I'd eaten the dish that I had forgotten to add the egg in at the end, so it's missing from the photo. It was a pleasant realization, because it left me 70 calories to use on a piece of chocolate that evening...

Shrimp Fried Rice: 361 calories

1 tsp olive oil, 40 calories
1 stalk of celery chopped, 6 calories
1/2 medium carrot, chopped, 13 calories
1/2 cup chopped onion, 32 calories
1/4 cup frozen peas, 31 calories

Stir fry till almost tender then add:

1/2 cup brown rice, cooked and refrigerated, 108 calories
10 medium shrimp diced or small shrimp to equal 50 calories
1 Tbl low sodium soy sauce, 11 calories

Stir fry till heated through then push to the side and add one beaten egg, 70 calories. Scramble egg till cooked and blend into rice.

Cornmeal Waffles-The Lighter Version

These waffles are a real treat. They are sugar free and gluten free as long as you make sure that your oats and cornmeal are certified gluten free.  The recipe makes 2 conventional waffles and I suppose would make one Belgium waffle, although I haven't tried it in the Belgium waffle iron I have so I can't say for sure.

Cornmeal Waffles: 413 calories for both waffles together

In a blender mix the following until well blended:

1 egg, 70 calories
3 Tbl Boxed egg whites, 25 calories
1/3 Cup Bob's Red Mill Gluten Free Old Fashioned Oats 127 calories
1/3 Cup low fat cottage cheese, 53 calories
1 Tbl coconut flour 13 calories
2 Tbl cornmeal, 55 calories
pinch of baking powder
pinch of salt

Cook 1 cup of frozen blueberries on high in a microwave for 1 minute. Mash up the blueberries with a fork and cook again for another 30 seconds. Set aside.

1 Cup frozen blueberries, 70 calories

Heat waffle iron and pour 1/2 of batter in. Spread lightly with spatula. Bake till golden. Repeat with other half.  Use cooked blueberries as syrup.

Chef Salad - the Lighter Version

I have a Chef Salad post in the comfort food list, and while it's close, this one lightens up a few ingredients to make it Noom-friendly.

Chef Salad: 342 Calories

3 cups Romaine lettuce, shredded, 24 calories
1/4 of a large red pepper chopped, 5 calories
1/2 medium carrot chopped, sliced, or grated, 13 calories
1 stalk celery sliced, 6 calories
1/4 medium cucumber sliced thin with skin on, 12 calories
1/4 cup Kraft 2% Mexican blend shredded cheese, 80 calories
2 oz Hillshire Farms Smoked Ham cut up into bite-size pieces, 60 calories
3 black olives, sliced, 12 calories
1 hard-boiled egg sliced or quartered, 70 calories
2 Tbl Hidden Valley Greek Yogurt salad dressing, 60 Calories

Layer ingredients on a large 11" dinner plate.

Homemade Vegetable Soup

The first recipe that I have found helpful on my Noom nutrition program. This soup is a base for me to expand to other types of soup. It makes a huge pot - 12-15 cups or so - so at 3 cups per serving  you can eat it for a few days or freeze it. You can add shredded chicken, pork or beef. For a Mexican flavor, you can add a couple spoons of spicy salsa and some black beans and corn. You can add pasta and some white beans for minestrone. It's very versatile. You can also mix up the vegetables depending on what you have available. As long as you stick with non-starchy vegetables it will work out to be about the same calories per cup, about 43 or 129 for the 3-cup serving.

Homemade Vegetable Soup: 129 Calories

1 medium rutabaga, diced. 63 calories
1 medium turnip diced. 28 calories
3 carrots, diced. 75 calories
1/2 large yellow onion, chopped. 79 calories
2 cups chopped red pepper 60 calories
4 cups of chopped cabbage. 88 calories
4 cloves of garlic, minced. 18 calories
1 cup frozen peas.100 calories
1 standard can of diced tomatoes. 70 calories
2 cups Imagine organic low sodium free range chicken broth. 40 calories
Salt, pepper, Italian seasoning - whatever seasoning you like.

These are the vegetables I had on hand. I sometimes use green beans, cauliflower, broccolli, or zucchini.

Put the canned tomatoes in a very large 6-qt pot. Add a can or two of water. Add the chicken broth. Add the root vegetables - rutabaga, turnip, carrot, and seasonings and cook till almost tender. Add the remaining vegetables and allow to cook just till crisp tender. Makes 12-15 cups depending on how much water you add.

A noom Adventure

Cruising Comforts is going to take a short detour. A need to replenish the cruising funds had led us to accept a job opportunity on land for a couple years.

It's been incredibly good timing because over the five years that we cruised, my health and fitness had steadily declined. I wasn't exercising enough, and I was eating way too much. Cruising enabled me to spend a lot of time cooking all the wonderful comfort food recipes listed on the right in the Comfort Food list. Great treats for occasional consumption, but not so great for continued health. The blogger at Cruising Comforts was becoming decidedly uncomfortable.

Soon after we settled into our land life, I signed up for the noom nutrition and weight loss program for no other reason than that nothing else worked for me in the long term and they promised it would be the last program I'd ever need. Eight weeks in and eighteen pounds lighter, things are turning around. So, for the time being while we're landbound, Cruising Comforts will be about a way to find healthy food that can be prepared and consumed in the confines of a small boat galley. No easy feat. If you're cruising and having the same problem of weight gain and declining fitness, I hope you enjoy the recipes, meal ideas, and fitness ideas. And never fear, one of the reasons that noom is successful is that no food is off limit in reasonable quantities. So after my initial weight loss back to my goal weight I will have a new comfort food treat to post once in awhile. 

Instacart - a Review

Last year, we were sitting in No-Name Harbor on a very hot day and we needed to provision. The Winn Dixie is a mile and a half away by foot or a $7.00 cab fare. To be honest, I was just beat from the last  months of working on the boat, and didn't feel like the walk. I had heard about Instacart, an online service offered through Publix locally, and one I often thought was tailor made for cruising sailors. I went online and signed up, filled out a cart which included a lot of the heavy items I would have had to lug back on my rolly cart. After seeing the "service fee" of 10% and the delivery fee, I backed out of the cart, put on my shoes and started walking. It was, after all, a beautiful day and at least half of the walk was through the lovely Bill Baggs Cape Florida State Park trails.

Fast forward to today. My daughter is living here with us and is expecting in two weeks. She's not feeling particularly well at this point, the birth center is a hefty drive away, and we share a car. Being 15 minutes away from the marina with a cart full of groceries and receiving a call that she was in labor and needed the car - STAT - was not my idea of a good time, so I thought I'd try the Instacart again just in case things had changed for the better in the last year.

I filled my cart, concentrating on the sale items they listed. I also added a lot of the heavy items I wouldn't want to haul in the bike trailer, my second traveling option. I got to the cart and there is still a 10% "service charge", which I assumed was the shopping fee for the shopper. On my order it was less than $15.00 and the delivery fee was free for my first order so I decided to give it a go. Bicycling is free, but the 2-1/2 hours it would have taken me to bike in, shop, and bike back were certainly not as good as that same 2-1/2 hours playing UNO with my grandkids.

The ordering process is pretty straightforward in their iOS app. It's easy to navigate, and the items are well described. A full nutritional value and ingredient list are provided so it's easy to compare products. The shopping cart is easy to understand, quantities are easy to adjust, and items are easy to add or remove. Coupon items have their own tab and are easy to browse through. Once in the checkout process, the service fee and delivery charges are clear. I placed my order just after 2:00 pm and my initial delivery was supposed to be between 4-5:00.

Close to 4:00 I checked the app and was a bit surprised to see that my order hadn't been picked yet. I guess to be fair though, it was Black Friday. It wasn't until 5:12 that I got the first text saying that my shopper had started shopping. At 5:31 I received my first text regarding any problems. One of the items that was on sale was out of stock and had been refunded from the order. It gives you a link in the text to go to where you can either approve the removal of the item or change it to something else.

At 5:50 I received the second text of an issue. Another item I wanted was out of stock and the text said that my shopper had replaced it with a similar item. Because the item was a very specific item required by my food-sensitive grandkids, it was necessary for me to go in and remove the item because there was no substitute. At 6:24 I received another text about another replacement. This time I was able to go in and change it to something I wanted rather than the one he had chosen. Two other changes brought the total to 5 changes out of 29 items.

At 7:05 I received a text that the shopper was on the way. The shopper arrived promptly, was efficient, courteous, and helpful. I had a chance to speak with him about his role in the shopping experience and I learned some things that may impact your decision whether to use this service.

1. The "service fee" is a fee that is defined on their site, instacart.com:

What is the Service Fee?

The Service Fee is used to provide customer support and recognize the efforts of the whole team for providing you with great service.

Is the Service Fee a tip? 

The Service Fee allows Instacart to operate our service and provide customer support. This payment is distinct from a tip as it does not go directly to the shopper delivering your order.

The service fee is 10%. My shopper told me that it used to be the tip, but that recently they changed it from a direct tip to the shopper, to a fee collected for "the whole team" as it says above. He was unsure who "the whole team" was. The shopper collects $.40 per item shopped and a delivery payment of $4.50, which used to be $9.00 and was recently reduced. For my 29 items, that equaled $11.60 for over two hours of work at a whopping $5.80 per hour less gas in the car (they use their own.) He also told me that if he drives over 13 miles he gets another $5.00 for the delivery but that frequently they give him two orders to do at the same time, one within a few miles, and one 20 miles away.

2. The Tip:

After receiving my order, which was well packed, I received a text that had a link to rate the experience as well as to make "adjustments" to my order. The "adjustments" are in fact a place to add the tip for the shopper, 100% of which goes to the shopper. None of the service fee appears to go to the shopper.

3. Prices:

I'm one of those people that is freakish about number memory. I still remember my phone number from when I was a young child and I know the price of almost everything I routinely buy. So it was easy for me to compare the prices on Instacart to those in the actual store. Almost all of the prices were higher than in the store. For instance, the gallon of organic milk I usually buy is $5.99 in the store. It was $6.69 on Instacart. The Kambucha I get is usually $8.99 for the big bottle and it was $9.99 on Instacart. The Second Nature trail mix I usually buy is $5.99 in the store, $6.49 on Instacart so you can see that there is already more than a 10% markup on some items even before the 10% service fee. There were a few that were cheaper because they were on sale on Instacart and weren't on sale in the store. The difference was not enough to make up for the marked up items.

So...would I use it again? I can honestly say that I wouldn't use it again unless it was an exceptional situation - I was sick and couldn't drive, I had no possible transportation to the store, I needed a prescription filled. There were some points in the process that I felt a bit "trapped" or maybe "coerced" is the right word. Had I known right up front that I would spend 10% more for the items, 10% for the processing fee, and 10% for the tip, I wouldn't have done it. You find these out bit by bit after you are already committed.

I'm also a bit gun shy around any company that abuses its workers. If I have any other option, I rarely use Walmart just for that reason. The way this company uses independent contractors reeks a bit of the way my daughter and son-in-law were exploited as graduate students. Were I to use it again it would be with the full knowledge that I was paying 30% more for the privilege of curling up in my cockpit with a good book instead of schlepping to the store on Black Friday. If you decide to use the service, I only ask that you treat your shopper fairly and add a reasonable tip.

Locally, for me, it only lists Publix and CVS and a couple other small stores, but in larger cities there are a lot of other stores like Whole Foods, Costco, Kroger, ABC Fine Wine and Spirits, Petco, Shop and Save, Schnucks, and The Food Emporium. That list is far from incomplete. You have to get online and check out your zipcode to see what stores are available in your area.

Clearly there are some benefits of having this service. But to use it regularly as your sole means of provisioning is a habit best left to those in mega yachts with a much bigger budget than Kintala's.