Thanks for stopping by! I'm Cori and I'm happy you've found your way here. If you're wondering why my blog is called "Let's Eat Grandpa," it's an old grammar joke: Let's eat, grandpa! Let's eat grandpa! (Punctuation saves lives.) 
The holidays, coupled with a nasty head cold that is just not letting go completely, sort of derailed my cooking, eating, and exercising for the last part of December and first part of January. Literally, I ate sweets for the week of Christmas, got a cold, and then ate chicken noodle soup for two weeks. I didn’t do anything even remotely athletic between December 17 and January 7, unless you count sleeping in. (I’m guessing you probably don’t count sleeping in.)
Which, I must say, has made me one big, fat crankypants. It’s amazing — once you really start getting into shape, eating healthy and getting enough exercise, you really do feel like crap if you stop. I hate feeling like crap.
So now that I’m finally feeling better(ish) and we’re all done celebrating Jesus by eating our body weight in See’s candy, it’s back to homemade cooking, eating healthy, and getting more exercise.
Not my sandwich. But it looked exactly like this.
Caramelize the onions first, according to the directions at the above link, and set aside. Butter two pieces of bread. Put one, butter side down, in a skillet (I have a cast iron panini skillet, which, in a pinch, I could use as a weapon. It weighs nearly 15 pounds.). Put dijon mustard on the other side of the bread. Add some sliced sharp cheddar and some thinly sliced ham (I like black forest ham from the deli). Top with the caramelized onions, and put the other piece of bread on top, butter side out. I usually grill the sandwich over medium heat, waiting for the bread to get nice and brown. Then flip, and grill on the other side. My panini skillet has a heavy lid, so it presses the sandwich in a pleasing way, making the cheese ooze out the side a little, getting crispy where it touches the skillet.
My finished grilled ham and cheese was divine, and I had a little side of sweet potato chips, which are yummy, and actually count as a serving of veggies. Not the healthiest serving, but it was better than nothing.
Seasoning a Cast Iron Pan
I also seasoned my cast iron panini skillet this weekend. I use it often, for more than paninis, because I like that it cooks with those grill lines. Cast iron needs special care, including occasional seasoning. Seasoning is simple — use a paper towel to coat the skillet/pan/pot with vegetable oil, and put in the oven at 350° for an hour. Seasoning prevents rusting and creates a non-stick surface. Cast iron can’t be cleaned like normal pans — dish soap and dishwashers remove the seasoning. I’m starting to use the technique of using coarse salt and a paper towel to remove anything that is still left on the pan after cooking. Who cares if there’s a little butter left over? Makes the next dish even tastier!
Training Update: Even though I was still feeling a little under the weather, I met up with my Tough Mudder group to run up and down a parking garage last Saturday. My brother — who has really embraced healthy eating and exercise…and looks fantastic to prove it — joined us. I think we can convince him to Tough Mudder with us in September.
The parking garage is ten stories tall. Here is the workout we did. I did sort of a modified workout, since breathing was still difficult. There was more walking and taking the stairs one at a time for me.
- Run up all 10 stories of ramps in the parking garage.
- Run down 10 flights of stairs.
- Take stairs one at a time all the way up, as fast as you can.
- The parking garage has a set of stairs at each end. Run down one ramp, and down one flight of stairs. Run up the next ramp, and down one flight of stairs. Run down one ramp, and down one flight of stairs. Repeat until you get to the bottom. The pattern of running ends up looking like this:
- Take the stairs two at a time all the way up, as fast as you can.
- Run the ramps down as illustrated again.
- And do it all one more time!
It took a little over an hour to complete. Strangely, the running pattern on the ramps is the “recovery” part of this work out — running up the stairs and all the way up the ramps is really what gets you. I had a heck of a time with going up the stairs — my lungs were still too full of phlegm to push myself really hard. Next Tough Mudder training is spin class! Our coach has kindly agreed to let me bring my laptop with me so I can watch 49ers game updates while we spin. GO NINERS!
I also went to karate twice this week, trying to get back into my normal routine. We’ve got some cool curriculum this cycle, including “Ricochet,” which involves chopping people in the throat, and a couple of back-knuckles. Hard core.
Running? Cycling? Yes, I need to start doing those again. Going to schedule runs and indoor bike rides on my trainer starting this week! (Hold me to that, okay?)
