Cadbury Egg Muffins

Holy Snikes did I miss out on the best looking Easter treat ever!




http://bakingbites.com/2008/03/cadbury-creme-egg-muffins/

Photo and recipe belong to bakingbites.com

quick post!

Hey all!

Just wanted to say I got my butt up before work today and walked a mile! WOOT!

and while making breakfast this morning I saw this on the news.

Zoo Animals on Weight Watchers

ok well im running behind!

BBQ Chicken Pizza

I am a huge fan of BBQ Chicken Pizza. The BBQ Sauce, the onions, the cheese...what's not to love? However it's not the healthiest thing when you are trying to eat better. So here was my healthier at home version. This is more of a concept than a recipe. If you have everything already cooked (the chicken and onions) it makes a super quick dinner.

Instead of regular pizza crust I used a quick and easy Rollup. I found them at CostCo and they are HUGE for their 2 points (110/3/7). Very similar to Flatouts without the really chewy consistency.

Next for the sauce. Using just straight BBQ Sauce makes it really sweet. Mat discovered if you take a few TBSP of regular tomato sauce (or spaghetti sauce) and mix it with the BBQ Sauce it makes a less sweet yummy sauce. (I usually do about 3 to 1 ratio)

Next up onions! You all know how much I love my cooked onions. I used about 1/2 cup of cooked onions for this dish. I often have some caramelized onions in the fridge we love them so much.

If you don't know how to make them it's super simple. Just slice several large onions in half moons, put about 2 teaspoons olive oil in a medium heat pan, add a pinch of salt and pepper and then let slowly cook, stirring occasionally until they are brown, soft and sweet. It will take about 20 minutes. YUM.

(My current lunch obsession this week has been roast beef and cheese sandwiches with dijonaise and onions.)

Chicken Breast - I often try to keep cooked chicken in the fridge for quick and easy meals, I can talk myself out of cooking something if I have to wait for it to thaw. I used about 3 oz on this pizza.

Cheese - I used 1 serving (1oz) of Kraft sharp 2% cheese. A tip I got from Roni is that if you use the fancy shredded cheese you feel like you get more bang for your buck. 2 points

Then just put in a 350 oven for about 10 minutes until the crust is crisp and the cheese is melty.

Rollup - 2 points
2 TBSP Sauce - .5 points
1/2 cup cooked onions - 1 point
3 oz cooked chicken breast - 3 points
Kraft 2% cheddar - 2 points

Total points - 8.5 for a massive pizza. Easily could be cut in half and shared. I served mine with my lasted side dish obsession Broccoli Slaw!

Coooooooool Whip! (or is that Hwhip?)

I came across this article tonight on cool whip. Not that I am really surprised but it kinda makes me not want to eat it anymore. (Notice I only said "kinda") I do believe it was the Polysorbate 60 and Sorbitan Monostearate that did it for me.

Next thing they are going to tell me the Hostess 100 calorie packs are full of beef fat and hydrogenated oils!

Oh how we all love our chemical filled food.

Anyone got a diet coke?

Yowza!

Woah. Today was not a good food day for me. It wasn't even a planned bad day. It was a bad day because I didn't plan. I wasn't going to post about it but since I am not going to meeting I felt like I needed to talk about it somewhere.

I had a doctors appointment this morning. So I started off well with some life cereal and a cup of milk. My doctors appointment took longer than expected so it is now 11ish and I am supposed to be at another appointment at noon and the drive is over an hour away. I wish I had had the foresight to pack a sandwich or something but no my super ravished stomach (and brain) decided to stop and wendys for not 1 but 2 junior cheese burgers. To top all that off I had a diet coke float. Ack! Stop the insanity.

I promptly came home and looked up all the point info: 23

Glad I came to my senses at dinner time.

6:45am

Yes I woke up at 6:45. I have no idea why but I wasn't even remotely tired anymore so I decided to go ahead and get up. This actually gave me plenty of time to plan out some healthy meals for the week and to get my grocery list ready.

I am only planning 3 dinners. Mat works some nights so usually 3 together is about what we manage. After I cook them I will let you know how they turn out.

Meal 1:
This is a Rachel Ray recipe I saw on tv.
Grilled Chicken Cutlet Parmigiana served with spinach and romaine salad and some whole wheat garlic bread

Meal 2:
Chili Mac from Cooking Light with some fruit
I already ran the recipe through the recipe builder and it estimates 6 points per serving if you have 6 servings. The points do not include extras such as cheese.

If you would like me to email you the PDF version from the recipe builder just let me know! According to the recipe builder this is also a Core recipe if that pertains to anyone.


Meal 3: Chicken Scarpiella
I found this recipe in my Family Circle this month. If you use the Al Fresco brand sausages this comes to 7 points per serving (4 servings total)

Picture from parents.com

I can't wait to try these out this week!

eating out

We all know how hard it is to eat out well. I had a HOA meeting tonight at McAlisters. Before I went I checked out the nutrition info on their website. My usual fav, the club sandwich, is a whopping 1200 calories and 69 grams of fat. (29 points!) Just hard to imagine a sandwich packing so much! So needless to say I found another dinner option tonight.

I found this week I am really having to make myself fill in my points tracker at night. After dinner I kept telling myself, "oh im sure I ate within my points" and I think we all know where that leads.

I really hope next week to get back with meal planning and picture taking. Mat and I haven't been to the store in a while and our fridge currently houses beer, diet coke, yogurt and cheese.

“He who fails to plan, plans to fail”

candy hearts

I managed to get through the valentines season without a single candy heart.

ice cream!

I totally passed on getting ice cream today. I was with a group of people from work and they all stopped to get it. I just said "no thanks, I'm still full from lunch"

wow. what's come over me!

FEED ME!

Wow this week I feel like I cannot stop wanting to eat. It's that time of the month and I just want to eat and eat. It's not like I'm out eating fast food and candy but I do feel the constant need to snack.

We are also bummed about the whole TTOTM thing from a TTC aspect as well. I am currently looking into getting a ClearBlue Fertility Monitor.

The scale currently says I'm 1 pound up from my sunday weigh in but I am not sure how much of that is TTOTM stuff. I really really realllllly am trying to focus on making better choices. I am trying to view my counting points and better food choices as an overall life change than a "diet". I've dieted before. I'm still fat. I needed to see it as something differently.

For example I am off work today and had to help Mat with getting his car to the shop. I stopped as his restaurant (Buffalo Wild Wings) to eat lunch with him.
I love the wraps there but thought how could I make it a little better for me. I asked him to make me one that was mostly lettuce and pico (both freebies) 4oz of grilled chicken, a tbsp or so of both bbq sauce and cheese. I still guesstimated all that at around 10 points but overall I was still happy I could eat out with my husband and not stuff 3000 calories in my face.

Going to try a new recipe for dinner. Chicken Florentine I'll let you guys know how it goes!

Spanish Rice with Beef

ok guys here is one of the recipes I promised you! Hopefully I can find my camera charger this weekend and I will be able to add pictures of everything.

Spanish Rice with Beef is a recipe from my childhood. My mother had joined a church based diet called First Place and it was from their cookbook. I really had forgotten how much I enjoyed it until I made it again.

Full Recipe found here: Spanish Rice with Beef

How I followed the recipe:
I used extra lean ground beef and cooked that with the onion. I actually had forgotten to buy the bell pepper this week at the store so I left it out. I couldn't taste a difference but if you like bell peppers than add it!

The recipe calls for 2 cans of stewed tomatoes. Just to give it more flavor for one of the cans I used Mexican Stewed Tomatoes and one can regular. I suppose next time I might use both cans of Mexican Tomatoes but I was worried about it being too strong. Stewed tomatoes are still whole (well the ones I got anyway) to break them up a bit after you take the lid of the can you can take a sharp knife and just cut in the can a few times. The first time I made this dish as an adult I noticed it looked different than I had remembered as a kid. I called my mom and she told me she had always pureed the tomatoes in the food processor first because as kids my brother and I would not eat chunks of tomatoes. So if you have a picky eater this may help. ( Kristi? :) hehe. )

Next is the rice. I was trying to be more healthy and used brown rice. After a half hour as the recipe states I still had almost raw crunchy rice. I let it go another half hour and it was still a little crunchy. So if you would like to use the more healthful brown rice I suggest either precooking it some or just know you are going to cook this dish for like a hour and a half. According the the points tracker on the WW website they are both the same number of points. So next time I will probably use regular rice and get my fiber dosage elsewhere.

The rest of the recipe is herbs and seasonings. I did add some salt and pepper to my beef and onions as they cook. You should always season well as you go as opposed to waiting until the end. I used cayenne for the "red peppers" it mentions. I just use the Rachel Ray method and "eyeball" my seasoning amounts and I tend to go a little heavy since Mat likes things really seasoned.

Since one of my main focuses right now is making sure my portion sizes are correct I actually measured how many cups this made. I got 6 cups cooked. Per the recipe builder each cup is 6 points. I like is served with a little light sour cream. YUM.

Wow that was a lot of explanation for an easy dish.I'm betting this even could be converted to a crock pot receipe...hmm something to think about!

Friday Evening Relections...har.

Wow have I been hungry this week. It has been an adjustment for me counting points. Not really that I have been eating badly this week but just the amount of food has been hard. But it is what it is, hopefully I will adjust and learn. I can already see I need to add more veggies in my day. I hadn't realized how little veg I was actually eating until I saw it in print (well on screen...ha) So my goal for next week will be to include at least 1 veggie and fruit serving with lunch. I really love the new ww online. They have vastly improved it from years ago when I tried it previously. Im not a paper and pen journal kind of girl so its perfect for me.

I still have some recipe reviews to write up for you for this week so I will get to that this evening!

PS - I am not usually a pudding eater. Sugar free pudding and jello don't seem to work for me but this week Mat bought some Jello Sugar Free Dulce Le Leche Pudding. It is fantastic!!! 1 point per serving! It was in the dairy section at the store. I tried it find it on the Kraft website but they don't seem to have it listed yet.

Yowza!

So the Red Robin Whiskey River burger has 29 points in it. OUCH!

Guess I'll be having water and sugar free jello for dinner.

ha.

Damn it was tasty though.

Quick and Easy Pork Chop Skillet

I found this recipe through Amber. I knew it was a dish I was not going to get Mat to eat so I decided to make it a night when I was dining alone. For some reason I am really surprised I enjoyed it so much. I actually think if I took out the pieces of pear Mat would enjoy the chops and the sauce.

(photo from the Kraft Website)

I used boneless chops. About 4 oz each and no big surprise but I doubled the onion. I couldn't find pear halves in juice so I used pear slices in juice. For those that do WW according to the recipe builder a serving is 5 points. I served it with Uncle Ben's Ready Whole Grain Medley Brown and Wild Rice.

Tasty Tasty!

Menu Planning

In a quest to eat more nutritious food I decided to plan ahead this weeks menu, go ahead and go to the store and have on hand what I need to make a good meal. This way we are much less likely just to grab some fast food because everything else seems like too much work.
As I try the recipes during the week I will go into more detail on them.

Monday - Melanie Only – Pork Chop Skillet
Tuesday - Mat Off - Spanish Rice with Beef, Salad
Wednesday – Onion Pork Loin, Cheesy Rice, sautéed zucchini
Thursday – Sweet Vidalia Chicken Salad with spinach, apples
Friday - Baked Turkey and Jack Cheese Chimichangas, Mexican Rice, veggie
Saturday - Mat Closes - leftovers from last night
Sunday - Eat Out, Mat Off

I'll keep you updated as my week goes.

yummy bar

I read a blog of a girl who has lost just over 100 pounds on weight watchers online in the last year. She mentioned she was trying to break herself of eating lots of processed foods such as 100 calorie packs etc. I asked her how she kept her sweet tooth in check and she told me about Clif ZBars.They are a 100% organic bar with no hydrogenated oils or high fructose corn syrup bar targeted toward kids. I picked up a box of the Chocolate Brownie at Target and I will have to say they are quite yummy. Although I am not on Weight Watchers at the moment it looks like they would be about 3 points.



Just wanted to share!

Mango!

Let me tell you I have never eaten a Mango. You say Mango and I think of Chris Kattan. I was looking around at Roni's GreenLightBites this week trying to find some good dinner recipes when I came across this video she made with her toddler about mango. That kid LOVES mango. He was so excited to get to eat it. We all should be so happy about fruit.

I'll be adding a mango to my grocery cart this week.

On a side note. Does anyone have any favorite "healthy" receipe sites? I am looking for some new things to try for dinner.

Great Food Blog Find

While searching through my saved recipe archive today I came across this great site called Kalyn's Kitchen. It is a South Beach based blog so you know the recipes fit into a healthy eating lifestyle.

Just a quick looked showed me many recipes I would enjoy and I could get Mat to eat without a problem:

Grilled Fusion Chicken
Greek Lemon Chicken
Southwestern Pot Roast
Chicken Stuffed with Green Chiles and Cheese

Ok now I'm hungry!

I was just happy to find a nice resource for healthier recipes that actually look like food we will enjoy!

Pork Loin With Caramelized Onions

Mat and I love cooked onions. I was an onion hater as a kid but I am convinced I never had them slow cooked until they were as sweet as candy. (YUM!)

I was searching recipezaar for something to do with pork loin when I came across
Pork Loin With Caramelized Onions

This dish takes a little while to cook but is very quick to prep.

Pork Loin With Caramelized Onions

1 large sweet onion, thinly sliced (I did 2, next time I will do 3)
1 teaspoon sugar
2 teaspoons olive oil
1 (1 lb) pork tenderloins
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon pepper

In a large skillet, cook onion and sugar in oil over medium-low heat until onion is tender and golden brown, about 30 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Place the pork in a 13 x 9 x 2 baking dish coated with nonstick cooking spray.
Sprinkle with salt and pepper. Top with onion mixture.

Bake, uncovered, at 350 degrees for 40-45 minutes or until a meat thermometer reads 160 degrees.

Let stand for 5 minutes before slicing.

--
To save time I cooked the onions earlier in the day and went ahead and put them on top of the seasoned pork and just kept the pan in the fridge until it was time to cook it for dinner.

While the pork was cooking I also threw my favorite easy organic trans fat free potatoes in the oven. (Alexia Oven Reds - Olive Oil, Parmesan & Roasted Garlic)

Add something green and dinner is done!

Sausage and Tomato Rigatoni

I really enjoy the Kraft Food and Family magazine. It always has beautiful pictures and yummy simple food. It's free to get so be sure to sign up if you don't get it already!

This week I tried the Sausage and Tomato Rigatoni. Mat really liked it and he is not a huge red sauce fan so I know it was a keeper.

Original Recipe found HERE.

Sausage and Tomato Rigatoni

4 cups rigatoni pasta (8 oz.), uncooked
1 lb. Italian sausage, cut into chunks
1 red onion, sliced 1/4 cup
tomato paste
1/4 cup KRAFT Sun-Dried Tomato Dressing
1/4 cup chopped fresh parsley
1/4 cup KRAFT 100% Grated Parmesan Cheese

COOK pasta as directed on package.

MEANWHILE, brown sausage in large nonstick skillet; drain. Stir in onions and tomato paste; cover. Cook 15 min. or until onions are tender and sausage is cooked through, stirring occasionally. Stir in dressing.

TOSS sausage mixture with pasta. Sprinkle with parsley and cheese.
--

After reading all the reviews I decided it needed a little bit of tweaking.

First of all I used Sweet Italian Turkey Sausage. It had plenty of flavor, no need to use the full fat stuff here. I found it at Wal-Mart in the meat case with the other turkey products.

I prefer to use Whole Wheat pasta when I can. I have found this awesome tasting brand Bella Terra at my local Schnucks that we both like so no need to not use it! But just use whatever brand you like best.

I had a regular onion on and hand and no parsley so I just used what I had.

The tomato paste I picked up said "With roasted garlic" so I figured it would just be even tastier.

Wow, that seems like a lot of tweaking ingredient wise but it really wasn't! Promise!

Now for the recipe. I cut my sausage on an angle so I would get more surface area for browning. I used a tiny bit of olive oil so it wouldn't stick, put the pieces in and let them sit there for a few minutes. Don't move them around constantly. If you let them sit there they will get nice and brown and brown = flavor! Flip and brown the other side. I then took out the sausage out of the pan. I didn't have anything really to drain just a small amount of "brown bits" in the bottom of the pan so I took my sliced onions and threw them in to get a little softened. I always think onions are better if you cook them a little first before adding them to a sauce. I also threw in a TBSP of chopped garlic just because I can.

When the onions were tender I added the can of tomato paste. This is where I took some of the reviewers suggestions and added a can of water with the tomato paste. I really think it needed it otherwise it is just too thick. Once I had the onions, garlic, tomato paste and water combined well I stirred back in the sausage, a few good shakes of italian seasoning and let it all simmer together for about 15 minutes until the flavors were all combined and the sausage was throughly cooked. Then I stirred in the dressing and added the pasta to make sure everything was coated well.

We added the Parmesan on top of our bowls of pasta.

YUM.

I know this explanation was really long but most of you will see it was just more "method" then recipe.