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Breakfast:

I had a chicken drumstick left over from the night before, so I stripped the meat off, mixed it with a little diced celery, red onion, and mayo, and made a chicken salad omelet with Monterey Jack cheese. And quite yummy it was, too.

Lunch:

Leftover roasted chicken leg and thigh

Dinner:

Three medium-boiled eggs. All I had room for.

Color me happy! My yummy, yummy pork cracklin' strips came! They are SO GOOD! I immediately ripped the box open and ate about 2/3 of a bag! (Which, considering that the label says 1 bag is 8 servings, was a real gorge. A real gorge with zero carbs, I might add.)

I barely had any appetite for dinner, but since I got a good 30 grams or so of protein from the pork cracklin' strips, it's no big deal. Try that with your low fat pretzels!

Breakfast:

Leftover coffee cheesecake with chocolate sauce
Later on, three fried eggs

Lunch:

Didn't really have one, because of the snacks, which were...

Snacks:

Pecans
Another teeny sliver of coffee cheesecake with chocolate sauce
Pork rinds with cream cheese and sweetened jalapeno slices

Dinner:

A roasted chicken thigh

Beverages:

Tea
Sparkling water
Dry red wine

Totals: 2178 Calories; 154g Fat ; 113g Protein; 37g Carbohydrate; 11g Dietary Fiber; 26 grams usable carb.

An interesting article by Dr. Michael Eades, of Protein Power fame, about how, exactly, our brains make decisions on what temptations to resist and what to give in to, called Low-carb battles in your brain.

Here's what That Nice Boy I Married and I will be having for our Valentine's Day candlelight supper:

* Seared duck breast with apricot-mustard glaze

* Grilled asparagus

* Bayside Salad (this is a salad from 500 Low-Carb Recipes; it's basically a tossed salad with some bitter greens and some thin-sliced red onion, tossed with raspberry vinaigrette, and topped by crumbled bacon, crumbled blue cheese, and chopped toasted pecans)

* A nice bottle of pinot noir

Last night I once again threw together a supper from stuff that was around the house. I had a big hunk of pork loin in the freezer -- just over two pounds worth. I had bought a whole pork loin on sale several months back, stuffed and roasted a piece of it, and stashed the rest in the deep freeze. Pork has a pretty limited freezer life, so I needed to do something with it before it started tasting nasty. (Even well-wrapped pork shouldn't be left in the freezer more than 4-6 months at the very outside. It develops an off-flavor that all the spices and sauces in the world cannot hide.)

Testing only.

When I got back from Jimmy Moore's Low Carb Cruise, I wrote about discovering new low carb snacks down south. In particular, I discovered that I much prefer "pork cracklin' strips" to the standard pork rinds.

1/4 cup of salted peanuts -- 7 grams carb, 2 grams fiber -- mixed with a few Carb Smart sugar-free chocolate chips (see ad at the left of the screen.) Yummy!

I roasted a pork picnic shoulder Saturday evening, so we've got leftover pork in the house. I also had a fresh pot of homemade chicken broth. So last night I improvised a pot of soup using leftover pork. Here's how it went:

I put some chicken broth in the pork roasting pan, and dissolved the nice brown pork drippings. Poured this into my big saucepan, and added about a quart or so of broth. Put this over medium-high heat, while I cut some leftover pork in strips -- probably between two and three cups full. Dumped that in, too.

Breakfast:

Sausage patties and fried eggs

Lunch:

A couple of leftover chicken drumsticks

Dinner:

Soup I made from leftover roast pork -- I'll post about that in a minute.

Snacks:

Sliced leftover pork
Sugar-free dark chocolate

Beverages:

Tea (both hot and iced! It's warm here!)
Sparkling water
Dry red wine

Totals: 1782 Calories; 113g Fat; 104g Protein; 17g Carbohydrate; 5g Dietary Fiber; 12 grams usable carb

My very best Valentine's Day was in 1990. That Nice Boy I Married and I had had our first date the previous October, then, due to complications that would be way too much to go into here, were not together for a few months. We got back together on January 14th, so Valentine's Day was our first "monthiversary."

Before Breakfast:

I was hungry as soon as I got up, so along with my tea I had a low carb brownie I had leftover in the freezer from the project I turned in last month.

Breakfast:

Monterey jack omelet with chunky salsa

Lunch:

Roasted chicken thigh
Coleslaw

Dinner:

Two more chicken thighs
Coleslaw
Leftover Fauxtatoes

Snacks:

Cinnamon Splenda pork rinds
Sugar free dark chocolate

Beverages:

Tea
Sparkling water
Dry red wine

Totals: 2206 Calories; 129g Fat (62.0% calories from fat); 136g Protein; 41g Carbohydrate; 12g Dietary Fiber. 29 grams usable carb

Yes, I know this is very late. There's a simple reason for this: We pay no attention to professional sports. (Well, really to sports at all; I believe That Nice Boy I Married and I are the only people in southern Indiana who don't watch the NCAA Final Four every years.) We've even been known to host a "Let's Ignore the Super Bowl" party.

As a result, I only learned this past week that tomorrow is Super Bowl Sunday. Sorry!

Still, I thought I'd give a quick rundown of Super Bowl Sunday Snack Strategy.

First of all, sit far away from the chips.

Do any of you read the Ask Amy column? She's headquartered at the Chicago Tribune, but I generally read her in the online Washington Post. I usually think her advice is pretty good, but today I had to take exception: