three quick things, ya gotta try!!

first of all, for anyone who may read my blog but not my friend jaime's - the grocery game is something that really intrigues me and i plan on signing up for soon. i despise coupons...... UGH! but love saving money, and now that im buying a lot of fresh fruits and veggies for full price i need to be saving money else where. well that and the whole economy thing. basically im a sucker for easyness. go into the grocery, get what you want, get out. making a list and clipping coupons does NOT appeal to me, but its something i need to grow up and do. i dont budget and im a horrible impulse buyer. which is so not mature! i need to act my wage, so im going to use the grocery game to help me out and i wish you would, too!! ive already been clipping coupons and checking out the sales paper, and i cant wait to pick up a sunday paper for even more coupons! yay for growing up!!

number two - and this kind of ties into the grocery game and eating healthy. e-mealz.com is a co-workers sister's business. (jaime, look at the picture and guess which one, they look exactly alike!) the grocery game helps you make a list, emealz goes one step further and creates your menu!! how awesome is that!! for just $5 bucks a month, you pick your plan (points, low fat, just for two, family size, etc...) and pick your store and print out your recipes complete with grocery list. it even puts the correct price by each item!! this is also something i plan on implementing.

lastly, and not nearly as exciting as saving money and having a meal plan made for you with the push of a button..... but still tasty.... is asian pears. oh.... my.... gosh!!!! also known as (thanks to me) "appears", they are delicious bites of heaven. so juicy with a honey like sweetness. please go get one. i have found them at wal mart and publix and am totally addicted to them.

diet pizza

gross, right? wrong!! :D by far one of the best pizzas i've ever eaten, i can't wait to eat the other slice for lunch tomorrow!!

i got the inspiration from this recipe

Caramelized Veggie and Goat Cheese Pizza
recipe by me, inspired by above

one precooked 4 serving whole wheat thin pizza crust (mama mary, buitoni)
1 & 1/2 cup sliced baby bella mushrooms
1 teaspoon sugar + pinch of salt
1 teaspoon evoo
2 cups thinly sliced onion (about one medium onion)
1 "cup" fresh spinach leaves - its hard to measure spinach, just get a nice handful
4 ounces reduced fat feta
1/2 to 1 whole roma tomato, thinly sliced

preheat the oven to 450*
heat a skillet and brown the mushrooms
drizzle the pizza crust with a little evoo and rub it in
crumble the feta evenly over the crust
once the mushrooms are browned, remove them from the pan and heat the oil, sugar and salt
add the onions and cook until they're see through and starting to brown, remove
add the spinach and toss around in the hot pan until it wilts
top the feta with the slices of tomato and then the rest of the veggies
be sure to cover the feta with the veggies, exposing it will make it harden
lower the heat of the oven to 425* and put the pizza in for 10 minutes
let cool and enjoy!

~~~~~

this pizza serves 4 at 400 calories a slice. that may seem like a high number for a single slice of pizza, but you are eating a quarter of the pizza and it is very filling. also verrrrrry good! the saltiness of the cheese goes perfectly with the sweetness of the veggies.

i only made half a pizza, but posted the recipe to feed 4. the other half was "meat lovers" and im sure not nearly as healthy, or good in my opinion! but bradley loved it.

patato patoto

I am a carb-oholic, I would never last on atkins.

This mashed potato recipe is perfect! I subbed 1/2 cup of fat free milk for the 2 tablespoons of light sour cream and achieved great results without altering the calorie count. I left the skins on, but actually think the end result would be better without them. They all kind of clumped at the bottom of my stand mixer bowl anyway. Sprinkled lots of salt and pepper, this mashed potato recipe is not only fool proof but taste proof. You have no idea you are eating a healthy side! And with only 178 calories per 3/4 cup, you could easily sprinkle some cheese on top and not feel guilty.

I usually boil my potatoes with a chicken bouillon cube, but was running low and opted not to. I think it would of given them even more flavor, so if you have an extra one, throw it in!

Mashed Potatoes
recipe and picture courtesy of eatingwell.com

3 pounds baking potatoes (about 8 potatoes), peeled and cut into 1 1/2-inch chunks
Salt to taste
1/2 cup reduced-sodium chicken broth, heated
2 tablespoons reduced-fat sour cream
Freshly ground pepper to taste

1. Place potatoes in a large heavy pot and cover with cold salted water. Bring to a boil over high heat. Reduce heat to low and simmer, partially covered, until tender, 10 to 15 minutes.
2. Drain the potatoes and return to the pot. Off the heat, mash potatoes, adding enough hot broth to make a smooth puree. Stir in sour cream and season with salt and pepper.

PS - this is my 100th post; YAY!

4th and 4th

Jaime tagged me to go to my fourth folder and upload my fouth picture.

I only have two picture folders, one is a catch all and one is a holding tank for blog photos. After I upload them to here I delete them to save space on this dino.

So how bout a pic from the 1st and 4th??

This is me at my fiesta wedding shower thrown by my office. This expression came with the sentence "why are you taking a picture of this??" I had spilled the drink on myself, haha!

That's a weight I wouldn't mind getting back to....... sigh!!

I tag........ amanda, je yall and annemarie

Recipe Review

I have several low cal recipes book marked, and I plan to try them all and see which ones fool my husband and which ones will be filed under the "never make again it tastes like cardboard" tab. I don't wanna use the word diet here...

I eat whatever I want. Nothing is off limits. However, I only allow myself a set number of calories a day, so I have to budget them. Kinda like a bank account. Now, say I have $100 dollars to spend at the galleria. As soon as I walk in I see a shirt in the window at express and swoon and go try it on. It's $48 (and you know that's true!). As I'm walking out of the dressing room I notice the clearance rack and realize that I can get two shirts and a pair of jeans for $35. Why on earth would I blow half my money on one shirt when I could get one shirt plus an entire outfit for $13 less??? It works the same way with calories. At the end of the day, I want to come in on budget, and not overdrawn :D Sure I could have a coke, but for the same amount of calories I could have a string cheese and 16 wheat thins, with calories (money?) leftover!!

So when I saw a recipe on eatingwell.com entitled No-Bake Macaroni and Cheese, I wanted to give it a shot.

picture borrowed from foodnetwork.com who borrowed it from eatingwell.com

First of all, it should be titled Broccoli Alfredo. It in no way tastes like macaroni and cheese and if you dive in expecting it to then you might be turned off. With that aside, this is a great recipe! The recipe feeds four at 412 calories per serving, which is a little on the high side but it makes a TON and the serving size is really big. I think they intended it to be the main course, serving it as a side, you can lessen the portion and have fewer calories.

When I saw the calorie count I made one change and used fat free cheese instead, which lowered the count to 327.

Also - We tried whole wheat pasta for the first time. It has slightly fewer calories but extra good for you stuff. Well worth it. I couldn't tell a difference, and once you boil it the dark brown color fades a little. Covered in the white sauce, it looked like regular pasta.

This recipe will be tucked away for future use, filed under "Alfredo".

more, more for less

Tuna salad is one of my comfort foods. Especially the way my mom use to make it, with noodles that were still kinda warm and diced cheese and pickles. Yum! The cheese would get just slightly melty. So good. I try to re-create it but Bradley is a "no noodle in my tuna" person.

While Bradley had traditional tuna salad, on wheat bread with cheese and bacon (ugh!!) I turned mine into "Tuna Noodle Salad... Salad...". This is a dish that you can play with to taste how you want. I used fat free ranch instead of mayo thinking not only would it get rid of all the calories in the mayo, but add a nice taste to the salad. Wrong. You definitely need to add spice/seasoning. I usually add dill to my tuna salad, but got in a hurry last night and forgot. So my dinner was a little bland but still worth it! Next time I'll just have to remember to add the dill!

Tuna Noodle Salad Salad
recipe by me

one serving size your choice pasta, boiled, drained, slightly cooled
1/2 cup tuna
hard boiled egg
1/4 cup fat free shredded cheese
2 tablespoons fat free ranch
add ins of your choice - dill, relish, chopped onion, chopped tomato, dash hot sauce, etc...
bed of lettuce

fork up the tuna and the egg to about the same consistency, stir in the cheese, stir in the ranch, stir in the noodles and add ins. serve atop a bed of lettuce.

~~~~~

Without any "add ins" the calorie count was 470. I ate mine with 10 saltines for an additional 120 calories. Lots of protein!! Big serving!! Also - please excuse my shabby pictures, hopefully my digital camera will turn up soon! Maybe its hiding where my coastas are hiding!!

more for less: lunch edition

With the economy the way it is, gas the way it is and fast food the way it is..... it only makes sense for me to eat lunch at home. I can control the portion, I can control the calories and I get to see my puppies mid day :D

Most of the time you want lunch to be your biggest meal, because you are going back to work and using those calories for fuel, unlike dinner where you're going to sit on the couch afterwards and do a little channel surfing. But today I already knew what I was making for dinner and wanted to save my calories for that.

Last week I did a major grocery haul and cooked/prepped everything I could to make coming home for lunch quick! I bought a "family pack" of yellow squash for $4 that I sliced and browned on the nonstick griddle and stored in the fridge. I also cooked two bags of brown rice that I keep in the fridge until I need it. That way lunch is as easy as measure heat and enjoy!

So today when I stopped by the house to eat lunch and see the swearing in of America's new president, I reached in the fridge for starch and veg and to the freezer for protein. Gorton's seasoned fillets are so great and cook quickly in the toaster oven.

Brown rice really isn't that appealing to me all by itself, but I love to eat it because it keeps me full for hours. So today I added two low calorie condiments and it really impressed me! I now am a brown rice lover.

So lets count it up:

Cajun Blackened Fish Fillet - 100 calories
1 cup yellow squash - 40 calories
1/2 cup brown rice - 75 calories (mixed with the following 2 ingredients)
1 teaspoon margarine - 17 calories
1 tablespoon parmesan (the powdery stuff) - 25 calories

Now obviously the calories are slightly different depending on which brands you buy, but I'm sure this is a good estimate. That comes to a grand total of 257 calories! That is less than most lean cuisines people!! And just look at the amount of food it was:











Still hungry? Add some lettuce and low cal dressing for ~50 more calories. Still hungry? Add a clementine for dessert for 35 calories - and you're still under 350 calories for lunch. Now I know I have seen lean cuisines with a higher calorie count than that!

intervention

Well its a new year.... and you know what that means! Everyone is back on their diet. This year I decided I didn't want to make a diet resolution, I wanted to make a healthy resolution. I want to be healthy. I want to be fit. I want to weigh what I weighed when I got married..... 2 and a half years ago. It was NOT that long ago, how have I gained this much weight?!?! Oh... I know how, I was eating bite for bite with my stick figure husband. Damn his metabolism!!!! So while he went to work every day and performed manual labor to sweat off what he ate last night, I set on my butt answering phones and typing binders. When I went out into the PR world last summer I thought, "Here's my chance, I can move around all day, I can resist snacking by not eating in the car, I can get up and walk around the neighborhood in the mornings since I no longer have a 45 minute commute to work." And I did all of those things..... and I gained weight. GAINED WEIGHT!!!!!!! OHHHH MYYYYY GOSHHHHH!!!

I was mad and I gave up, convincing myself that this is who I am and I'm happy. But the truth is this is not me, and I'm not happy. I mean I have never been that girl who could eat whatever she wanted and still be thin, actually I've never been "thin" but I have been healthy and a decent size before. That is all I want.

So it started small, cut out cokes and tea. Only water and lowcal milk. Easy enough. Then step two, portion control, no more second helpings!!! Little harder. Step three, actually start counting calories. Which is where the sneaky part came in. Making a little bit of food into a lot of food by adding fruits and veggies. That was easy.

In between all of this I was reading, reading and reading about what all my body needs and how many calories I need a day to lose a pound a week. I found lots of inspiration on youtube, seeing ACTUAL people with an actual need to lose weight, actually lose it. That helped a lot. Not seeing some skinny ho on the nutrisystem commercials with before pics that may or may not of been her telling me that I'm a fatty.

Now I've lost 6 pounds and I'm really starting to get excited about it. Almost instantly my face cleared up, as I had been a victim of dietary rosacea for a while. I knew exactly what was wrong with my face, but when people would ask why my cheeks were so red I would blame it on me being hot or sunburned. It was embarrassing to say, "I'm all flushed looking cause I eat pure crap".

One of my main reasons for not eating healthy was, "It's hard to be on a diet and feed your husband too, he isn't satisfied with a lean cuisine and a salad for dinner." Which is true, but this time I wasn't going to let that stop me. Now there have been nights when I had a grilled chicken salad and he dined on a chicken quesadilla AND chicken nuggets, but those are few and far between. He has been very supportive and even joked with me that, "Just because you're on a diet doesn't mean I am" as he tried my new slim version of a once calorie laden dinner.

I said all of this to say, I know I am not alone. So I am going to put this culinary brain to work and come up with some man pleasing dinners that are easy on the waistline.

The first being, taco salad. BIG on taste, BIG on portion, small on calories! And the best part, you stay full for hours, and I mean HOURS, like eat for dinner and go to sleep and wake up still full. That's what I'm talking about!!!

Taco Salad
recipe by me

cook a pound of ground turkey and then season it with taco seasoning like normal.

lay out a bed of lettuce

mix 1/2 cup of each of the following: turkey taco meat, fat free refried beans, brown rice - and kinda spread it out over the lettuce.

top with 1/4 cup of kraft fat free cheese

top with 1/4 cup rotel

top with 2 tablespoons light sour cream

sprinkle 1/2 of an avocado, diced over that

~~~~~

Now I forgot to take a picture, but this took up an entire plate and was mounded way up high. So so so good! All for 585 calories!!! It is full of protein, which keeps you fuller longer. Don't be afraid of the ground turkey, once it is seasoned and mixed with all of this, you can't tell a difference.

Now I'm off to step four.... THE GYM!! :D