Virgin Sprouts

I need more sprouts in my life.  I want to get even more servings of fruits and veggies in my life and today I decided to experiment with brussel sprouts. I’ve heard of many people roasting them, but had yet to try them myself. 

I bought this microwaveable bag at Trader Joe’s.  That’s pretty cool that you can microwave them in the bag for a quick side dish, but I had roasting on the brain.

 

I preheated the oven to 425 degrees and started to trim the bases off of the sprouts.

And then cut them in half.

I put them on a pan with non stick spray and lots of salt and pepper!

I roasted them for about 20 minutes, tossing once halfway through.

Served with a fajita leftover from dinner last night.

 

yummy. And super filling!

Points value on sprouts: 2

Lots of choppin’

Tonight I made Quick Fall Minestrone

I got a package of chopped butternut squash at TJ’s.  This saves so much time I highly recommend doing this!

   

Served with quesadillas with chopped roasted red peppers and cheese! mmmmm!

 

Check out that melted cheese!

For dessert: Cantaloupe, honey dew and grape salad

 

Tomorrow we have a delay until 10 for work.  Hopefully the roads will be good to me!

 

 

Beer and Brownies

Last night was a relaxing night being snowed in.  We made some No Pudge Fudge brownies with half of a marshmallow in them.  I put them in a muffin pan to keep them portion control friendly. 

Baked at 350 for about 20-25 minutes (just keep checking on them).

And we had a bottle of Trader Jose Light beer with a lime each.  Tasted just like Corona!

 

You know how you get the lime in the bottle? Stick your thumb in it and turn it upside down right?  Well, we found out quickly that my thumb was way too small to plug the bottle so the husband had to do it for me!

This morning I woke up and made some chocolate chip pancakes with some recipe I found on Allrecipes.  Be careful,  I think this website gave my computer a virus and we had to run a long virus scan on it this morning.  I had a bunch of trojans! ugh!

I ate a few with Skippy Super Crunch PB and the husband used Peter Pan creamy.  I hate creamy pb because I feel like a dog trying to scrap pb off of the roof of his mouth!

Both with syrup!

And Zoey (unfortunately for her) got a bath this morning!

 

She is so tortured loved.  

Here is another weekly recap of Cooking Light recipes!

Sloppy Joes with Corn

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With oven wedge fries from TJ’s.

 

Sliced tomatoes with blue cheese crumbles from TJ’s.

   

 Pork Chops with Carolina Rub

    

Served with broccoli slaw with blue cheese dressing and blue cheese crumbles.   

And maple baked beans Holy yum!

  

Chipotle Chicken Tacos

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Slow Cooker Red Beans & Rice

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I’m glad I bought the spicy jalapeno sausage from TJs otherwise this recipe would have been just meh. It was ok, but not my favorite.  It smelled awesome while cooking, but I was disappointed.

We snacked on this: Frank’s Red Hot and 100 calorie Jolly Time Popcorn while we waited on the Crock Pot. 

Need to get some more water in?  Add hot sauce!! Frank’s is awesome!

So there is last week’s recap.  I’m going to count the recipes in the book to see how many there are.  I am determined to make every one this year!  Since we are snowed in today, I am going to read more of “The Time Traveler’s Wife",” since I finally finished to “Twilight” series!  Those books were good, but the chapters were never ending!  I might play in the snow today too

Recipe Recap

I’ve been busy lately.  I’ve been exhausted coming home from work and when I do have free time, I’ve been planning meals, buying groceries, cooking, reading the third book in the Twilight series, etc. etc.!

Here are the recipes I have not blogged on yet.  As you know, I’m going to try to cook every recipe out of the Cooking Light: Dinner Tonight Cookbook this year.  Here is what I’ve been cookin’:

Rotini with Chicken, Asparagus and Tomatoes

 

 

 

Croque Monsieur

Smoothies

 

Spiced Salmon with Mustard Sauce

The good honey comes from the honey bear

 

 

Pork Tenderloin with Pomegranate Glaze

 

 

Stuffed Portobello Mushrooms

How to remove mushroom gills

Homemade Balsamic Vinegarette

  

Chicken and Bacon Roll Ups

Tacos al Carbon

 

This recipe called for steak, but said you could use shrimp or chicken as a substitute so I used shrimp.

Spicy Cabbage Salad-we didn’t eat much because it was super super spicy!

Apple with caramel sauce for dessert mmmmm!

 

So there you have it.  A whole bunch of recipes for ya!! I will keep cooking and keep posting as long as you keep coming back to read them

Have a good day!!

This too shall pass

We did it!  We didn’t eat out this week (minus yesterday-we went to Cracker Barrel in the morning, but we didn’t pay) so that means we saved a bunch of money.  I swear, even the milkshakes we would get can add up!  We had this yummy pizza last night:
Quick Pizza Margherita

I bought a 16 oz whole wheat pizza dough from Trader Joe’s.  The recipe called for 10 ounces so I tore some of the dough away until  I got it just right.

Perfect!

Leftover dough

 

Bake the crust at 400 for 8 degrees.

Then rub olive oil and half of a garlic clove on the crust.

 

Maters

 

4 oz. of mozzarella.  Disclaimer: I already had bagged mozzarella cheese.  Next time I am getting fresh.  I think it will make it even better.

Spread the tomatoes and and leave about a 1/2 in border.  Then top with mozzarella.

Bake for another 12 minutes and then add fresh basil and vinegar and oil mixture.

On the side we had Lemon Broccoli. 4 cups of broccoli, lemon juice, onion, s&p  and a minced clove of garlic all mixed together. mmmm!

This steamfrest broccoli made things a lot easier.  Only took 4 1/2 minutes to heat up!

It was super yummy.  Pizza and I have a relationship.  It’s true.  I am in love with pizza. Oh yeah, the husband too.  But a lot of my love goes to pizza.  The serving size was only two pieces.  We were good and ONLY ATE TWO pieces.  Talk about willpower! 

We stepped on the scale this morning to see how we were doing since we have been eating healthier.  I was down 3 pounds, the hubby was down 4.  Woo hoo!  I would have been happy with any loss, but it’s always nice to see me go down more than a pound.  Yay Cooking Light!

Today was a little crazy.  We were watching the movie “The Proposal,” when all of the sudden the husband gets on the floor and literally starts rolling in pain.  He started sweated a lot and ran to the bathroom.  He told me to call 911.  I have never seen him in so much pain.  The ambulance came and I rode along.  I cried the whole way to the hospital. He was moaning in pain t
he whole way.  He had a CT scan, blood drawn and a urine sample was taken.  He was diagnosed with 3mm kidney stone in his left kidney.  I am monitoring his medicine now and give him a lot of water.  Nurse Krista to the rescue!  I took tomorrow off to take care of him.  Hopefully it will just dissolve and not pass!  It looks pretty big on google images!

Pray for Brandon.  The in laws are bringing us Outback since Sunday is our “cheat within reason” day and we are going to finish watching the movie!  What a crazy day!

Easy Italian Chicken

Tonight I wanted something quick and easy.  I was so tired from work and decided on this:

Cook chicken until almost done.  During the last few minutes of cooking add a tablespoon of Newman’s Own Italian dressing to each side.

Finished product:

See how easy that was?

I served mine with kale chips and a caesar salad that was made of romaine lettuce, two tablespoons of caesar dressing and a little shredded cheese.

 

Volume = more full and less calories!

Food Description	WW Points
100 calorie Arnold flat	1
Almond butter and honey	1.5
leftover ratatouille and polenta	6
yogurt	3
grapes	1
chicken with dressing	5
kale chips	0
caesar salad	1
Total:	18.5

Ratatouille

Tonight involved this Ratatouille

Not this Ratatouille

Tonight’s meal was derived from buying an eggplant.  I am trying to incorporate more/new veggies in our meals and I bought an eggplant at the farmer’s market.

Here are the ingredients:

1 medium eggplant cut and cubed like this How to cut an eggplant

1 small can of tomato paste

1 cup diced tomatoes, drained

one small onion chopped

one small zucchini sliced and cut in halves

one small yellow squash sliced and cut in halves

1 teaspoon minced garlic

basil, s&p, and red pepper flakes to taste

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.  Combine all ingredients in a medium bowl and make sure tomato paste is spread evenly throughout the bowl (as in no big globs)

Lay two pieces of aluminum foil on a baking sheet.  Spread veggie mixture into the center.  Make a packet. Fold in two sides to the middle and the ends in coming together in the middle.

Bake for about 25 minutes.  In the meantime, make polenta per directions.  I mixed one cup polenta to 3 cups of water. Boil until thick and water is absorbed.

Once finished baking, let packet cool.  Open slowly and let the steam out.

Serve over polenta and enjoy

Back in the groove

This morning I went to Harris Teeter for triple coupons.  I spent $44 and saved $42! Woo hoo!  I love saving almost as much as I spend.  I have been clipping coupons forever for the anticipation of triples.  I was so excited that I forgot to eat breakfast.  Who does that?

Okay so I admit, I have been eating a bunch of garbage lately.  Milkshakes (not pictured and things like chicken tenders and bbq).  Time to whip my butt back in shape! 

For lunch today I made myself (it took a while) a healthy meal.

I made kale chips

This AWESOME sandwich with a piece of turkey, fresh spinach, and a piece of muenster cheese melted on a 100 calorie Arnold flat bread in my toaster oven.

Then I added some TJ’s white bean and basil hummus.

Ate with a sweet potato, light butter and brown sugar.

I ate about half of the sweet potato and saved the other for lunch tomorrow.

Total Weight Watchers Points (just to check in):

Food Description	WW Points
Kale	0
1/2 sweet potato	2
100 calorie Arnold FB	1
Spinach	0
Hummus	1
Cheese	2
Turkey	1
Total:	7