Freezing streets...

Weekend Recap:

Well...I had all these grande plans on Friday, that come Monday morning I'd have a dazzling array of photos for my weekend recap with lots of new things to share.  But my lack of photoskillz this weekend is forcing this blog to be shorter than I'd hoped...bummer!  BUT!  I do have a little Saturday recap for you from a trip to Hoboken & NYC that I took with some friends.

Oh, yeah...did I mentioned it was a trip coming on the tail-end of the coldest weather week we've had around these parts in a LOOONNGGGG TIME????  Ironic, no??  But we weren't gonna let a little ICY WIND and 22 degree HIGHS ruin our plansJ  Especially when we had somewhere to warm up in the shape of:

(photo source)

Stacks Pancake House in Hobokon was everything I love:  Carbs, coziness & maple syrupJ  And not only is your main meal carbs, BUT they even bring you out a little extra in case you didn't get your fill.

I just CAN NOT pass up some fresh cornbread.  This one was crumbly, sweet with a hint of vanilla cake (yep, gotta love that!)  Sooo goodJ

And despite my obvious joy of vanilla-y cornbread & love of all things maple syrup, you would probably be surprised to find out that I am really not that much a "sweet pancake" person.  I'm not big on the whole 'fruit on pancakes' thing (although some corn or the occasional cinnamon get my stamp of approval!J)  So these 'Healthy Originals" sounded the best to me!  I'll take grains over blueberries anydayJ 

Really HUGE & fluffy cakes ALSO dotted with bites of vanilla in the batter.  But I must say the BEST part of the breakfast was when I ordered bacon and the waiter asked me if I would like it CRISPY or SOFT!  A CHOICE???  AWESOME!  CRISPY.ALL.THE.WAY!!!  And it was made to light & crisp perfection.

We left Stacks feeling a little more ready for the chilly weather & headed into NYC for some shopping & walking.  Oh, and of course a skinny vanilla latte after those side streets became a little extra blusteryJ 

And there's where my recaps ends, unfortunatly.  Yesterday consisted of a whirlwind beautiful brunch for our friends birthday and a lovely pizza & salad dinner disguised as a surprise housewarming party for my MomJ  The only other image that made it's way onto my camera was Katie (of course).  Who, after trying some scrambled eggs & salmon at brunch, DEVOURED a cup of chocolate mousse & some whipped cream...as evident by her little chocolate lipsJ

And my only exercise this weekend came from running from place to place & fighting the winds and FREEZING COLD streets of good ole New York.  (Can't WAIT to do that again...IN THE SPRING!)

I'm ready to get back to my workouts & some veggies and fruits today after a pretty big lack thereof the past 2 days!  Eeehhh...that's what weekends are for...as long as you pack em all in during the weekJ

Have a great Monday, everyone.  (well, as best as ya canJ)

Snow gods calling...

Friday recap:

8:00am:  I was GASP! out of lemons for my water this morning, so I had to sub with the next best thing:    This green tea that I bought back in November when I SWORE I was going to drink green tea EVERY.SINGLE.DAY!  Needless to say, counting this tea bag...there are now 2 missingJ

I thought I'd like this Chai flavored version, but it's still a bit too bitter for me to have plain.  Even with a bit of honey, I still didn't think it was OVERLY appealing.  I used to drink Bigelows by the gallon and would definitely buy that again...ya know, the next time I swear I'm going to have my daily cupJ 

9:30am:  Breakfast- Oatmeal topped with peanut butter & maple syrup 

• 1 cup unsweetened almond milk
• 1/4 cup oats
• Dash of vanilla
• 1 tablespoons chia seeds

12:30pm:  Lunch- Progresso Light Chicken Noodle soup

I'm not usually a fan of canned soups because I never feel like they are as flavorful as the calories or sodium content would suggest...but I was feeling not the greatest and just CRAVING hot soup.  And since Scott picked up a case of these last week for himself, I thought I'd give it a whirl.  For 140 calories a can, I guess I can't complain too much.  

2:00pm:  Coffee with creamer 

4:00pm:  Snack- 2 clementines & 1 wedge of Laughing Cow 

6:00pm:  Dinner-  Leek & Shrimp pasta

So OK...someone REMIND ME that as much as I THINK I want to cook on Friday, come 1:30pm Friday afternoon, my motivation goes OUT. THE. WINDOW.  And since I'm not a fan of just succumbing to ordering pizza out of laziness (we like to order when we plan it, so we can get excited about it all day.  That's our lives and I'm stickin to itJ), I need to just plan on an easy dinner that can be whipped up in minutes.

My initial plan was to make a chicken/cornbread/casserole type thing, to go along with the snowy evening that was forecast.  But unfortunately that plan was already gone with the wind by the time the snow ACTUALLY fell and I remembered the reason I was going to make the cozy casserole to begin with.  OH WELL.

Instead I scoured the freezer and realized we had everything we needed to make this QUICK AS A BLINK dinner.  Quick as in:  Make in the time it takes to boil water & cook pasta!  

Saute leeks in olive oil till softened... 

 Make a well in the center of the leeks & add garlic and shrimp.  Cook until the shrimp are pink.

 A glug of white wine to deglaze the pan.  Boil the wine for a few minutes to reduce.

Add in a pat of butter & 2 ladles of starchy water from the cooking pasta and BAM!  DONE!

Served up with a quick herb salad and you have a delicious & healthy dinner to beat the delivery man to your door. 

OK...but I DID take some liberties to blame the snow for the NEED for a WARM CHOCOLATE DESSERT.  Sure, we had some leftover baked chocolate doughnuts in the fridge...but we needed something gooey...and warm....

Another scour through our cabinets revealed: 

I don't even want to TELL you how old this box of Lava cake mix is.  It has somehow survived my "cabinet sweeps" for ...ummm...SEVERAL years.  I bought it back when lava cake was the new wave of innovative desserts.  So let that date it for youJ  Oh well...I guess I really did save it for a rainy snowy day!

All I needed was 2 eggs & 3 tablespoons of hot water.  The package even came with little aluminum cups! 

8 minutes in the oven & 7 minutes on a cooling rack and we had solid cake surrounding a gooey center.  Just what the doctor snow gods orderedJ 

And I knew my day just would NOT be complete without:

8:15pm:  40 minute Body by Bethenny yoga + 1 round of arms + "booty blast"

Alright, well I'm going to be in & out quite a bit this weekend with LOTS of meals out.  Hopefully I'll have some new fun things to show you the next time we 'chat!'  Until then...have a great Saturday!

Weight Loss Musings...

Thursday recap:

6:45-7:25am:  Dance/jogging/2 sets of arms/1 minute plank mix

Soooo I guess now would be the part where I mention that I usually "weigh myself in" weekly on Thursday mornings (hence while you'll usually see fairly "lighter" dishes for Wednesday dinnerJ  Gotta squeak out every last chance to lower that numberJ)  I don't know how much I want to talk about this weekly because it's all sorta subjective and how your body is functioning each week, but right now I can say I've consistently lost at least a pound each week for a few weeks now.  (Finally getting off the last of the Cough 7 pounds cough that I gained over Christmas time....eeeek!)  And I say this because I feel like I've been eating fairly normal and sustainable, which I believe is the ABSOLUTE KEY to weight loss.  Around the holidays, I had tried to go for a bit of being REALLY strict and stringent...which only lead to a few 'great' days and then I would end up binging and blowing all of that hard work.  What I'm doing now seems much less stressful.  And I've decided I'm going to try to eat more for health, then weight loss.  (trying to balance my carb/protein meals, reaching for fruit for a snack first ect.)  Then I'll be more focused on keeping my body healthy rather then the number on the scale.  Even if I do plan to weigh myself in at least once, it's just a good gauge for what's working.  Anyway...I might talk more about this from time to time since I know a lot of you are in the same boat as me, but what lifestyle that works is different for everyone.

ANYWAY!!!!!

8:00am:  Hot lemon water

9:30:  Breakfast-Multigrain waffle with butter

Again, I REALLY planned on going back for another...but this just seems to keep me full for awhile!  Well, that + coffee at 10:45.

11:45:  Lunch- 1 cup Cheesy taco soup with a handful sweet potato tortilla chips

This soup was even better after it sat overnight and made for some AWESOME leftovers!  I was sooo happy to have something so warm, filling & hearty for a quick lunch.

4:00pm:  Snack- 2 clementines & a handful of pretzels...

HOLIDAY shaped pretzels, I might addJ  

6:00pm:  Baked Onion Tart with Kale Chips

So after mentally scouring my fridge trying to figure out what we could make for dinner without having to bundle up myself AND the baby for a trip out in the frigid air to the grocery store.  And ODDLY enough, I had all of the makings of this pretty easy, yet fancy sounding dinner.

(onions, covered in puff pastry, after cooking on the stove top)

It was one of those perfect mid-winter decadent dinners that you could sneak and eat when no one was watching. 

Oh wait.

(onions after browning in the oven)

Caramelized on the stove top, and finished off in the oven to crisp up the pastry, these onions were little bundles of sweet & savory MAGIC.  And again, they were SUPER SIMPLE!  Try em to impress someone.

Topped with a little drizzle of simmered balsamic vinegar (making it syrupy)

And topped with cheese.  Ok...here's the thing.  Unlike the rest of the readily available ingredients, we did NOT have taleggio cheese hanging out in the fridge.  But I needed something that was soft & easily melty (I thought brie would work good here too).  Sooooooo...I know this would go against the wish of  EVERYONE who has ever made a tart...butttttttttt...I thought this Laughing Cow cheese would work just fine.

And it did (plus why not balance out some of that butter & sugar---which I used less than HALF than the recipe called for, BTW!)  Buttery pastry, sweet & soft layers of onion, savory cheese & a sweet drizzle of balsamic...these were a delicious little winter treat.  

And as another way to balance out the butter/sugar...we sided up dinner with some baked kale chips...

Always delish.  We love these things!

8:00pm:  Dessert- Baked Chocolate Doughnuts with Buttermilk Glaze

I just HAD to do it...

I could NOT wait until a "Sunday morning breakfast" in 2 weeks to try these out (we'll be out and about this Sunday).  You see, Santa Clause had bought me one of those nifty doughnut pans for Christmas this year...and it was just begging to be used.

We've already made some maple/bacon & some AWESOME cinnamon sugar varieties.  But I had a container of buttermilk in my fridge just SCREAMING out to be added to some chocolate batter and baked up into fairly healthy, faux-decadent treats...

I made half of this recipe (only subbing the oil/applesauce for nonfat yogurt...just because that was all we had) and they came out cakey & springy from the oven in about 10 minutes.

Finished off with a little buttermilk glaze...

Oh...and topped with pretty sprinkles to boot!  (thank you, sprinkle fairy!!J)

How can you complain, right?? 

Oh...but does anyone have any tips on how to make powdered sugar glaze NOT taste like your DRINKING powdered sugar??  You can't add too much liquid or then you'll need to add MORE powdered sugar, but I always think the glaze is TOO SWEET.  What am I missing??  Maybe I'm putting too much??

Alright...I better get out of here.  I decided to blog rather than have coffee during 'naptime' today...which means I'll be having coffee with a little, chubby hand grasping for my hot cup this morning.  Anyone else know that  feeling??J

Happy Friday, everyone!

Cheesy soup...do I have your attention? :)

I have a feeling this is gonna be a quick blog or I wouldn't be able to get it out to you till 9 o'clock at night.  I can already tell it's gonna be one of THOSE daysJ

8:00am:  Hot lemon water

9:30am:  Breakfast-Strawberry smoothie

Could not figure out WHAT I wanted for breakfast yesterday morning, and even though it went against EVERY "15  degree forecast," the strawberry smoothie ingredients seemed like the best and quickest breakfast fix .

• 1 cup unsweetened almond milk (accidentally bought original rather than vanilla, so I just added a drop of vanilla extract to the smoothie)
• 100 calorie strawberry Greek yogurt
• 1 tablespoon chia seeds
• about 1 cup of frozen strawberries 

It was Katie approved AND kept me filled up for:

10:30-11:45am:  Power Yoga class

Lunch was sorta random today.  I was heading out to run some errands with my Mom, but wasn't really hungry at the time, so I just packed up some trail mix & a pear to eat on the go...

Lunch:  1pm-Trail Mix  

             3:30pm-Pear

I really liked this mix of almonds & cashews (my favorites...along with pistachios!)...and lots not forget the little nuggets of chocolateJ  It was filling & hit all those sweet and savory cravings for the afternoon.

I had gotten home thinking I was going to be famished, but realized I probably was going to manage to hold off any more snacks until dinner.  I think it's because I didn't really have a lot of water yesterday.  Consistently drinking water all day seems to keep my metabolism running & I'll feel hungrier throughout the day.  (which you MIGHT think is a bad thing, but there's not much good that can come out of a sluggish metabolism!  TRUST!!!)

5:30pm:  Dinner-  Cheesy Taco Soup

Soup made with taco/chili ingredients & cooked in a cheese "broth"??  Ummmm...OK!  And it was kept fairly lean being made with ground turkey, 1% milk, light cheese and lots of beans & tomatoes for a health boost.  Not too bad, right??

And it was as good as it soundsJ  And VERYYYYYYYY simple.  The hardest thing to do was make the 'cheese sauce'...which took about 3 minutes, so there ya go!  

Served up with a sprinkle of cheese and a handful of sweet potato tortilla chips and this was a hearty, cheesy, stick-to-your-ribs dinner that was super satisfying!

Katie, however, stuck to puffs last nightJ  She's feeling under the weather this week and wasn't sure CHEESY soup was really a good idea....even if that chili powder probably would have helped those little sinusesJ

And speaking of PUFFS, we had our fair share for dessert last nightJ  The last of our Dream Puffz:  1/2 of cookies & cream and 1/2 a AWESOME Caramel Macchiato.  The caramel creme was SOOOO good...it almost reminded me of the butter salted caramel ice cream from Paris.  Oui oui! 

Well, that's all I've got for today.  I better get back to my bouncing baby who is jumping up and down in her pack-n-play as I type thisJ  The whole thing is going to collapse in on itself in a second...hahahahahahhaha

Have a great, Thursday!