Food and weekends

I’m a little short on the pictures from the past few days. I had good intentions but I just forgot about the camera once the food was on the table. I live for my weekend mornings. It seems to be getting harder and harder to drag my butt out of bed at 6ish on weekdays so I really do live for those two days a week I get to sleep to a whopping 7:30 until the boy wakes up.

Having said that, let me tell you how pleased I was on Saturday morning when the snoring of a certain man AND a certain dog in my bedroom woke me up bright and early at 6am. :| I tossed and turned for a while and then just decided to get up. I watched some trash TV and then when the boy woke up I started breakfast.

Saturdays are my high point days so I have a little bit of wiggle room. I decided I was going to make a special treat…chocolate chip pancakes.

I found this FiberOne pancake mix that turns out to be 1 pt per pancake and I added 1 tsp of mini chocolate chips to each one. Three cakes is a total of 5 pts.

Along with that I decided to make some strawberry syrup with my remaining berries. I cut up the berries and put them in a pot with a little water and some stevia.

Once they were good an boiling I reduced the heat and added a little corn starch to thicken things up. Because I used stevia and not too many strawberries this is a 0 pt syrup.

And that’s where my pictures stop. :) I ended up with 2 chocolate chip pancakes (3), with strawberry syrup (0) and fat free whipped topping (0), 1/2 cup scrambled cheese eggs (6.5), 2 1/2 strips Morningstar Farms veggie bacon (1.5), and an iced latte (2). It was a big, filling breakfast.

I didn’t make it to spinning on Saturday because we had a birthday party to take our son to and I couldn’t get through spinning, shower and get home with enough time to make it to the party. I totally wasn’t hungry by the time we got to the party but I had one hot dog and bun (8) later on for lunch.

I did get to the gym while the boy was sleeping however and spent a full hour on the eliptical trainer (which WW gave me 9 points for, it did not feel like 9 points of exercise.)  Anyway, we spent the rest of the afternoon running errands and then I went out to dinner at a local vegetarian place with a friend for dinner.

I estimated my entire meal to be about 14.5 points. Since it was a vegetarian restauraunt most of my entree was vegetables which left room for a yummy appetizer and dessert. We had my favorite hummus with celery, carrots and pita (5). For dinner I had a cup of black bean chili  (3), 2 falafel balls (3), and broccoli with lemon dijion butter (1). For dessert my friend and I split a small piece of key lime pie (2.5). I love that restaurant and I’m so glad I can go and have what seems like a decadent meal and it still be relatively good for me.

Sundays are always so busy for me and this one was no exception. I wasn’t able to find time to exercise but I did get some good quality time with my boy in. I also tried out a new sandwich inspired by Kelly’s Bacon Ranch Chicken Sandwich. Same basic concept except I don’t like Ranch so I substituted my own spicy mayo for the ranch. I used 1 sandwich thin (1), a Morningstar “Chicken” pattie (3), 1 tsp light mayo with cayenne pepper mixed in (1), 1 slice reduced fat swiss (1), 1 slice Morningstar veggie bacon (0.5), and lettuce (0). It was pretty yummy, I’ll definitely be making it again soon.

For dinner I decided to make homeade lasagna. I haven’t made it in a while but rather than follow a recipe I decided to just sort of wing it. It turned out to be 7 points per serving and the servings are huge. It was well worth the effort for sure. Here’s the recipe if you’d like to try it.

Spinach Lasagna

24 oz. Classico Fire-Roasted Tomato and Garlic Pasta Sauce
1 tsp minced garlic
pinch nutmeg
1-1/2 cup wilted spinach
1/2 cup fat-free egg substitute
15 oz. Low Fat Ricotta
garlic salt
6 pieces no cook lasagna noodles
3 cups Weight Watchers Shredded Mozzarella Cheese
2 Tbsp grated Parmesan

Spray a pan with olive oil cooking spray and turn on medium-high heat. Put garlic in the pan and add the spinich and pinch of nutmeg when it starts to sizzle. I used about a bag and a half of fresh pre-washed spinach and it came out to around a 1-1/2 cups when it wilted down. Stir the spinach until it is all wilted and remove from heat.

In a bowl, combine egg, ricotta, 1-1/2 cup of mozzarella and garlic salt (to taste). Once combined, stir in the spinach. In a sprayed pan (I used a 2 quart rectangular baking dish, it is smaller than a regular 9×13 pan), pour about 1/3 jar of sauce on the bottom. Arrange 3 noodles on top of sauce. Spread half the spinach and cheese mixture evenly over the noodles. Pour then next 1/3 of the jar of sauce and spread evenly.

Repeat those layers with the remaining noodles, cheese and sauce. Top the lasagna with the remaining 1-1/2 cups mozzarella and the 2 Tbsp grater parmesan. Cover and bake at 375 for 50-60 minutes. Uncover and continue cooking another 5-10 minutes until top is brown and bubbly. Makes 6 LARGE servings.

You could definetly cut the points by using fat free ricotta, my store didn’t have any though. I might try this with some veggie italian sausage next time. It was super yummy and filling.

Yesterday I called in sick to work due to a long night of not sleeping. I had a day all to myself and it was fabulous. I went to spinning, ran errands, had lunch by myself, got my legs and eye brows waxed and my car washed. It was a very productive day and totally worth using a day of sick leave.

Today it’s back to the grindstone. Joy!

Kelly over at Happy Texans is having a contest that I want to win! So go check out her site but don’t bother entering cause I’m winning this one for sure. ;)

-Weight Loss Warrior

Oh the drama

So I was gonna be ON PLAN this week, including exercise, in an attempt to jump-start my little plateau here. Well, what’s that saying about the best laid plans? I was all set for spinning on Wednesday after work. I’d psyched myself up and I was going damnit.

Then my phone rang at about 4:15 and it was my son’s daycare. That is NEVER a good sign. It seems he had gotten sunscreen in his eyes THAT MORNING and they were calling to let me know that although they had washed out his eyes several times they were still watering and he couldn’t open them and he was crying that they were burning. Why on earth they waited all freakin day before calling me I have no idea.

I called his doctor before I went to get him looking for some advice as to whether or not I should bring him in. The receptionist was beyond unhelpful. When I got to him at daycare I decided that he did in fact need some medical attention so I called my doc’s office back and let them know I was bringing him in. The receptionist informed me that all their triage nurses had already left for the day and the the doctor was just returning phone calls right now, it was 4:45. I explained that because it was his eyes that I felt it was a fairly serious situation and she told me that she could have the doctor call me. :|

I hung up with her, said a few choice words and turned around to head to our local urgent care clinic. That place was thankfully deserted so we got in pretty quickly. The nurse was great but the doctor was clearly NOT a pediatrician. He had zero bedside manner for a small child. They numbed his eyes with drops and then flushed them with eye wash for what seemed like forever while he screamed and screamed in my arms. It was awful.

During the flushing the doctor explained that his eyes were numbed almost like he couldn’t understand why he was screaming. I wanted to be like, “Um, he’s screaming because a couple of strangers are holding him down, holding open his eyes and dripping cold saline in them. Oh and he’s TWO!” I didn’t though, I just held my baby until it was over.

After the flushing his eyes immediately looked better. They weren’t watering and the redness was already going away and he was no longer complaining that they were burning. Clearly medical attention was the right way to go. The doc then put some dye in his eyes and looked at them in the dark to see if they were scratched. And of course they were because he’d been rubbing his eyes all freakin day.

They aren’t badly scratched but it does require antibiotic eye drops every two hours. That is just a barrel of fun seeing as he’s totally traumatized now from the whole eye washing thing. Ugh, just three more days and we’ll be done.

Anyway, not only did I miss spinning on Wednesday I didn’t do any exercise at all. By the time I got home, had dinner, got the boy bathed and in bed I was exhausted. I guess I’ll be making that up this weekend with back to back spinning on Saturday and Sunday. Yay?!

My eating has been on plan this week however and I seem to be finding myself with a big cache of points left at the end of the day. That’s not necessarily good I think. I should probably start eating some more snacks during the day so I don’t cram a bunch of calories in my least active part of the day.

I have also discovered the joys of light chocolate soy milk for use in my version of a Hungry Girl “swapaccino.” The new HG book has a recipe for a raspberry mocha madness swappuccino but I couldn’t find any sugar-free raspberry syrup in town so I’ve modified it a little and it turns out to only be 1 point instead of the 2 points the mocha light frappuccino at Starbucks weighs in at. Plus it costs WAAAAYYYY less than $4.50 a pop. Here’s my recipe:

1 1/2 heaping tsp instant coffee
1 tsp unsweetened cocoa
1 tsp sugar-free French Vanilla Coffeemate powder
2 tsp Splenda
3/4 cup Soy Slender Chocolate Soy Milk

place all powdered ingredients in a glass and add about 2 Tbsp very warm water, stir until dissolved. Pour coffee mixture and soy milk in blender and add 8-10 ice cubes. Blend and enjoy.

It’s yummy and scratches the Frappuccino itch.

Here’s hoping my weekend is totally uneventful!

-Weight Loss Warrior

A Yummy Soup

A co-worker of mine gave me a recipe for a delicious 1 point per cup broccoli cheese soup. The recipe actually calls for both broccoli and calliflower but I hate calliflower so I just doubled the broccoli.

1 point Broccoli Cheese Soup

2 heads broccoli (or 1 head broccoli 1 head calliflower)
8 cups water
6 chicken bouillon cubes (could use veggie to make it vegetarian)
24 oz. Frozen shredded hashbrowns
12 oz. 2% Velvetta Cheese

In a large stock pot put water and bouillon cubes on med-high heat. Cut broccoli into small pieces. Add broccoli and potatoes to the water. Let the mixture come to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer for 30 minutes stirring and mashing occasionally. Cut cheese into small cubes and add to soup. Stir until melted. Salt if needed. 1 cup = 1 point

That’s it. I used a hand blender to get it a bit smoother but you could also use a mixer or just smash the hell out of it. I suppose it all depends on how smooth you like your soup. The soup actually thickens a bit after it has sat a little while. I froze 8 cups in 1 and 2 point portions and put the rest in the fridge to eat this week. It is really yummy.

That meal pictured at the top was my lunch yesterday and what started out being pretty good point wise ended up being a ginormous lunch because of the amount of cheese I used on that sandwich.

I decided I wanted a cheddar and apple sandwhich to go with my soup but I wanted to use real cheddar instead of a single. I put 4 points worth of cheese on that bad boy.

All in all I ended up using 7.5 ponits on that meal. Oh well. I was still under for the day and I stayed full all afternoon because of all that protein. If that’s the worst that happens when I give in to my cravings these days I think I’ll be okay. :)

-Weight Loss Warrior