Surprise!

I hosted a surprise birthday party for my friend Rain last night and did most (almost all) of the food for the party. I know most people - especially her boyfriend and her boyfriend's friends - are just fine and dandy happy with pizza. Can we all say - bleh! Parties are a time to cook fabulous food and there's no reason to get that greasy stuff everywhere.

(Not that I don't like pizza, I do. But, I totally admit I'm a food snob too.)

Anyway, for 12ish people I made...

21 drumsticks in an Asian Marinade, which turned out fabulous
3 zucchini sautted with Enova oil, onions and crushed red pepper
1 lb of green beans with the citrus dressing I posted earlier this week
*Bought 1 lb of potato salad (for people who don't like all green veggies)
2 pkgs strawberries with the yogurt drained & Spenda brown sugar added.
There were also 3 bags of chips, salsa and peanuts.
Oh, and her boyfriend bought a cake...

My veggies were actually 99% gone by the end of the night and the potato salad was only half eaten. The chicken disappeared quickly too and we only had 4 pieces left at the end of the night.
Everyone complimented the food and ask for the citrus recipe for the green beans! :)
And, the yogurt - someone told me that it was so good, he thought it was the "store bought stuff". (hee, hee)

Goes to show you can put good food in front of people and they'll love it! With a bit of help from Amanda, my friend deven and myself in the kitchen... I planned the menu yesterday afternoon, bought the ingredients at 5pm, started prep at 6pm and finished everything right at 7:15pm.

I was sooo pleased!

Sweet Blueberries

While I was at the farm I picked (okay, fine - my mom picked them for me) some blueberries. I had recently seen the post from the Pioneer Woman about the yummy yogurt/brown sugar/blueberry dessert. So, my mother and I lightened it up and made it. It was SOOOooo good.

I have 3 cups of blueberries that I've been eating off and on since I got home. So, today in my bento I did a super quick version of that dessert. :)

===
2 Tblspn Blueberries - 0 points
1 Tblspn Fat Free Vanilla Yogurt - 0 points
1/2 tsp Splenda Brown Sugar - 0 points
===

It's not a lot but fits perfect into a silicone muffin cup and will be a sweet treat at lunchtime. And, best of all - NO POINTS!

Insanity

Can I blame EXTREME mood swings and general craziness on my diet?  Please?  I promise I haven't taken actual leave of my senses.  It's temporary.

Back On Track

Not that I really jumped off track. I just wasn't able to log everything.

I mostly ate veggies while I was home. There's nothing better than heirloom organic tomatoes, home grown green beans, fresh zucchini, fresh blueberries and organic free-range chicken. Mmm.

I made a zesty dressing for the green beans too...

1/4 tsp lime zest
juice of 1 lime
1/4 tsp lemon zest
juice of 1 lemon
1 TableSpoon *really* good Olive Oil
1/4 c. chopped shallot
1/4 tsp oregano
& as much fresh basil as you want (I did 6 leaves julienned)

Blanch your green (or wax) beans to desired crispness, drain and toss with the dressing.
Make enough beans to serve 4.

I served it at room temp and it was very refreshing! Mmm.

Hump day, sans humping.

Okee-doke. I 'm checking out the Hungry Girl site (to the left on the menu bar there).  It's pretty awesome so far and I'm only on the second page!  I'm going to make the smoothie to wow my guests this weekend (I think) and I'm entranced by the Philly Cheese Steak.  

Last night I did a totally low fat low cal soup.  Kind of Japanese I guess.  It's just:

4 Cups Water

2 Tsp Dashi Stock (powder)

1 Tbsp Fish Sauce

1 Tbsp Soy Sauce

Cabbage - sliced into strips

Kamaboku

Fish Balls

- boil and eat.

Yum!

So since dinner was so low point (like 3 points for the whole pot) I treated myself to a DQ cone.  Go me!

I'm thinking hard about hitting the grocery store tonight to find something that excites me.  Hey, Jes is gone, I need all the excitement I can manufacture solo.

Turkey pie

We didn't end up doing this for dinner the night I posted as I went with Jen and Madi to the mall for a while. Not conducive to having the oven on.

I made it last night and well, lesson learned on turnips. They take a lot less liquid to mash. I ended up adding in some instant potatoes to thicken a bit. To make up for this I halved the mushroom soup which was the big pointer in the recipe and I'm considering it a fair exchange. It was lovely. Peppery, garlicky, and a lot lighter in flavor than the beef or lamb versions. Generally an all around hit.

add this site to list

check out this website during your electronic travels in search of healthy indulgences. http://www.hungry-girl.com/ I've just found it and definitely looks like it's worth looking through for interesting ideas.

Bored, bored, bored.

Disinterest has set in, as it usually does soon after the husband ships out.  Can of soup for breakfast and I'm planning on hitting the Subway for lunch.

I know that I can do these things and still be well within my points for the day, but it's so...boring!

Blame retraction

So I earlier heaped blame upon one of the skeevy places I go shopping as the cause of my stomach troubles. Apparently not so. But all is now well and I'm back to not recycling my points.

I was feeling better by mid Saturday so I went out for a bit and Martinsburg was yard sale central. I now have a bike - woot! I'm hoping to soon add bike rides to my exercise routine. eh routine. Who am I kidding? To my vague collection of exercise options that are rarely ever utilized.
That's a bit better.

On a points note I managed to make a Shepherd's Pie recipe that has only 6 points per heaping serving. Delightful.

BTW

by the way, I was WAY impressed with Amanda's focus this past weekend. Sure, we ate a little extra, but she came home and plugged the points right in the computer! I, by the way, did NOT. Maybe we were slightly bad influences on eachother (what's new there?) but I probably would have been much worse if she wasn't thinking in terms of weight watchers. Thanks Amanda for keeping me honest. ;)

greetings for the new week

hello everyone. So I"ve joined the fad and hope the pounds will melt off just by chatting with you gals! We'll see how it goes.
I've been doing OK the past few weeks, but ready to jump in again with renewed energy and added incentive to get the chunk gone from my hips. Egads.
It's been a good day so far!

Blue Monday

OK, not really blue.  But it IS Monday.  I was admonished by the friendly WW website for loosing weight too quickly.  So I mentally told it to fuck off and then I packed my lunch.

I am currently in love with chicken.  Really because I have a 3 breasts to cook, and just little ol' me to cook for.

Sunday I made some kind of Shish Taouk which, for the uninitiated is a Shish Kebab.  This is the recipe I used as a jumping off point.  Except I was almost out of cumin, so I used the dash of it I had and added ground coriander and tumeric.  And also some plain yogurt.  And plain chicken is boring when you have some fresh shrimp, so I threw those in to the marinade mixture and let the whole thing sit for about 2 hours.  Skewered the poor meats and broiled the chicken and then the shrimp.  Served over chopped endive, because that's what was in the fridge.  And other than the greens being a bit bitter, the whole thing was damn good.

Today I've made up and packed some lemon pepper chicken bits for lunch.  Easy and tasty too.

I'm thinking about treating myself to some Mexican for dinner tonight.  Yay Mexican food!  Chicken fajitas are just 8 points for two.  I'm going for it.

Great weekend

Even with all of the great food that Sharon and I ate this weekend, I still did great on my points. And I'm only 10 lbs away from my 10% goal!

We tried a new restaurant at Virginia Beach. It's called Taza. Posh tapas style food.

Too bad today I really want to eat everything in sight! Boo!

Oh god.

This just isn't the week for me. I haven't been doing well on the WW but I'm still doing "better". Last night I had yummy avocado rolls for a snack - the big ones with wrapped with rice paper. Ohmigod, so good! Oh, and seaweed salad to go with... Not to mention my blended mocha frap from Starbucks that the BF bought me. Damn boyfriend. It was sweet and I didn't want to say no!

And, I've been totally out of flex points since Thursday! LOL

Anyway, I thought I'd share. I suspect that next week will be better since I'm going to do the grocery store shopping tomorrow. Plan week meals, etc. This week has been a lot of catch as catch can. While not failing COMPLETELY ... Still having set backs.

Hope everyone is fairing better than I!

Damn Walmart or Rescue Mission or Goodwill

Well so far I've been sticking to the points for the week. Especially after all the cleaning I did yesterday. Haven't made any great foods lately, though. Just haven't been inspired. That may be due to the _cooking only what is in the cabinets_ thing I try to do once a month. It helps prevent the moving out issue of "Hey didn't we pack that sauce when we moved IN here?"

Oh a bright note I may not need my points for the rest of the day. If you um lose your breakfast do you get those points back?

Thanks Pioneer Woman! Maybe...

If you haven't been to the Pioneer Woman website, go now. Do not pass Go, do not collect $200. GO! Specifically, click on the Cooking tab. (Also cruise the rest of the site. This woman's writing cracks me right up.)

There is almost NOTHING healthy about this woman's cooking (at least from the WW perspective), but her recipes all look delicious, and easy. I've tried out one or two with good results.

Tonight, in honor of Roses and Sharon visiting, I'm planning to dive into the Asian Noodle Salad. Hey, it's almost all veggies, how bad could it be?

Try 14 points per serving bad! It's honestly all in the dressing. I mixed it up last night and it smells and tastes so good - I can't wait to start cutting vegetables!

Starbucks

Hey, did you know that a Tall Soy Chai Latte at Starbucks is only 3 points! That's totally exciting. I got one for me and Amanda on Tuesday and today. Yay treats!

However, totally avoid their "low-fat" breads/sweets. Their low-fat strawberries and creme coffee cake is 7 points and their low-fat lemon loaf is 8 points.... Not as bad a the real thing but not great. One must hope they have flex points left. LOL

Here's their nutrition information if you just can't live w/o your 'Bucks... and, yes, there's a pun in there.
http://www.starbucks.com/retail/nutrition_info.asp

Anyway, how goes things for everyone else?

Thanks Ichiban Kan

Okay, you all know that Amanda and I are stuck on the bento lunch thing. Well, I've been looking at them online and bought several cool types. Specifically, I ended up getting the 'Happy Balloon' bentos from one store on eBay but they didn't have a plain orange strap so I bought one with a monkey on it. Since then, I've been interested in owing the bento with the monkey on it.

Amanda found a store that sells bentos for $1.00 +/- so I bought the monkey bento - along with many good things today! :)

http://www.ichibankanusa.com

Oh, so yeah - Thanks Amanda too for feeding my bento addiction. I've got some baran coming with your name on it! ;p

Round 47

Here we go again. Maybe we'll actually manage this for more than a month. I have faith, really.

Weight Watchers Online

So, are we all signed up for the infamous WW online? Amanda and I are having a war of who can make the tastiest lunch with the lowest points -- how fair the rest o' ya'll?