How was your weekend? Did anyone have amazing feasts, especially asking those that celebrated Chinese New Year?

I did!

A week ago, I joined my friend’s biggest loser challenge. I should have joined after Chinese New Year and Super Bowl weekend… fail. We’re competing in teams, and MG is my partner. We have until April to lose weight and achieve our desired weight goal. The initial fee is $50, but halfway through the challenge, if you lose a certain percentage, you get half your money back. I somehow feel like I’ll lose my entire $50… Okay, good thoughts. Good thoughts!

But this weekend I ate like I’ve been starved for a week. I ate so much I needed to change into fat pants when my guests were gone. I ate so much that I’m definitely going to gain at this next weigh in. It was worth it!

On Saturday, I hosted dinner for my in-laws. We had an epic hot pot meal, basically it was a hot pot buffet at home. I prefer hot pot over shabu shabu any day. The difference is one is Chinese style, the other is Japanese. Chinese is a bit saltier, and the Japanese version has a sweeter taste. If you’ve been reading along, you know I have a savory tooth! We had two burners going, one vegetarian with miso based soup, and another with Little Sheep flavoring. I purchased lots of veggies, an abundance of seafood, beef, and lamb.

Tofu, fish paste, imitation crab meat, shrimp, salmon and various fish balls!

Look at all that meat and those veggies!

My favorite sauce to use is the BBQ/satay sauce. It makes hot pot perfect! All this food for 7 people. Did we have leftovers? Yup, and that’s why my in-laws are coming back on Monday to feast again!

For dessert, I made malt ice cream, ginger ice cream, and Japanese cheesecake. It was the perfect dinner for the day after New Years!

Now I have a question for you: hot pot or shabu shabu? What are your favorite things to eat at hot pot?

Then another epic weekend day – Super Bowl Sunday! MG and I decided to host a last minute party for a few of our friends. We have LOTS of sliced cheese because, for some reason, we bought cheese from Costco. To make use of the cheese, we made grown up grilled cheese sandwiches, along with a side of meatballs and roasted chicken drumsticks. For dessert we had homemade chocolate chip & caramel cookies. Probably paid about $30 to have 8 people come watch the game at our place – that’s under $4 a person! Though this was the most uninteresting game on record, we had a good time feasting!

^^^ Looks like they are glowing 

Fancy grilled cheese – recipe to come soon!

Did you host a party? What did you make? If you went to a party, what did you eat? I want to know!

Am I losing that $50 or what? Okay, back to eating healthy! And running! Yay…

What did you do this weekend?
Jay