Yummy Muffins!

I made some muffins last week when I had two ripe bananas left in the fruit bowl. They were pretty good and I froze the rest so I can just take one out and pop it in the microwave for a few seconds.  

I got the recipe from AllRecipes.com, you can CLICK HERE for it. It doesn’t use any oil/fat but has reduced fat sour cream in it instead. The only thing I changed is the flour, instead of white I used whole wheat, and I also added about 1/4 cup of pecans. I calculated the pts from the recipe (without the pecans) and it was only 2 per muffin :) After recalculating with the added pecans it comes out as 3pts per muffin! Which still isn’t bad.  It would be kinda like having this for breakfast. . . .

but instead of the Vitatop muffin top I’d have my own homemade muffin. I’m trying to make a lot more of what we eat instead of keep buying frozen stuff (plus I find Vitatop muffins rather pricey!).

Dinner one night last week was roasted chicken breast (which I’d cooked myself):-) along with a spinach saladw/Newmans Own raspberry and walnut dressing, and Green Giant frozen sprouts in butter sauce (only 1pp per serving).

On Friday night last week we made our own pizzas (using whole wheat pizza dough from Whole Foods Market).

I posted about this over on my DAILY BLOG! It was super yummy and I plan on making  pizza night a regular thing around here. Next time though I’ll calculate the points for it. I was slacking as usual and not tracking that day! This pizza (for me) was topped with red onions, yellow bell pepper and fresh mozzarella with some fresh basil from my garden.  I’ll be trying to make my own pizza dough next time we make them.  If anyone has a good whole wheat pizza dough recipe, please share :-)

A Good Day!

Yesterday was a good day eating wise, but I could do better. I did get lots of fruit and veg in, but I was in a snacky kinda mood so I might have had a little more fruit than necessary!

I forgot to take pictures of lunch and dinner! But I did snap a pic of my snack. . . .

Usually I would just have the hummus and crudités, but as I mentioned I was in a real snacky mood and I had already opened a bag of WW Ranch Multigrain Crisps (3pp). So this tray was a total of 5pp. I’ve been making my own hummus (ww recipe) but I had ran out of tahini paste, so this one was store bought – the Sabra brand.

I love this stuff!

For dinner last night I made a simple breaded chicken breast. I guess you could call it ‘Chicken Picatta’, kinda like Gina’s recipe. I didn’t follow her recipe but it’s really just the same thing.

(picture from Skinnytaste.com)

All I did for mine was pound chicken breasts flat, dip in flour then egg and then Progresso breadcrums, fry/brown in a little olive oil then pop in the oven for 10 minutes to finish cooking. Kristen and I made chicken nuggets this exact same way last week and they were great too. Hubby commented that '”this one’s a keeper”!  I served a spinach salad with it and some frozen mixed veg. Next time I’ll take a picture.

For breakfast this morning I fancied an egg sandwich!  2 slices of Sara Lee lite bread, 1 egg, total 4pp. I also used the rest of the tomatoes from yesterday and added a little fresh basil from my garden. Along with a ‘cutie’ orange and some blackberries. (both free points).

Here’s to another great day ‘on plan’!

Must get back on track

I haven’t posted in here for a very long time… a whole month to be exact! That’s not to say I haven’t been ‘on plan’ (well, some days I have been, some days I haven’t!) but more for the reason I was having my daily blog redesigned and my intention was to post my ‘healthy posts’ over there too, along with knitting related posts. Basically, keep all my journals centered on just one site.

That sounds like a good plan, but to be honest what I like about this blog is coming back to it time and time again to read it, look at the pictures I’ve posted and visit the blogs on my sidebar …. it really does motivate me. SO, here I am back again, if for no one else but myself ;-)

For the record (cos I never posted about it when it happened) I actually got down to my goal weight a couple of weeks ago. The goal weight that WW set for me that is.  I’d personally like to be 3lbs less than the ‘healthy weight’ WW said I should be, so I was trying my best to still stick to the plan. But, I must confess I’ve gotten off track since I hit that lovely ‘goal weight’ number.  AND I’ve gained about 3lb back in those two weeks!!!  How easily it all goes back on.

This week I am getting back on plan. I think journaling in here more often will help. My aim today is to take a picture of every meal and snack I have so I can blog about it later.

Today I took a picture of this . . .

A yummylicious 5pp breakfast.  I’ve been having a waffle with BetterNButter spread and some fruit most mornings along with a scrambled egg, but today I felt like having bacon and eggs :-)

1 slice of Sara Lee light bread – 1pp

1 egg – 2pp

4 rashers Oscar Meyer bacon – 2pp

mushrooms and tomatoes – free

I didn’t eat all of the bacon, only 2 rashers!  The coffee w/creamer is extra points (which I do count).  This will keep me going well up to lunchtime. Not sure what I’ll be having today . . . I need to start thinking about it now ;)

Happy with that!

It’s weigh in day – I didn’t lose, but I didn’t gain either :-) I’m happy with that! I haven’t exercised all week  and last night I had way too many snacks, but the fact I didn’t gain any is enough to keep me smiling.

Last week I put up my treadmill in the guest room to make room for my craft table! I got lazy and didn’t even do any workout dvd’s! I DID find the dvd that goes with my stability ball (not that you knew I was looking for it, but I was) so this week I think I will use my Reebok bench and the ball and work on ‘toning up’ some.

On to some food. . . . have your tried these?  Tofu noodles! I’ve wanted to try them ever since I saw the Hungry Girl episode where she made cheesy alfredo and used these instead of the fettucine pasta!

I finally found them in that new Natural Grocers store. One word - ‘Blech’!!! Oh my goodness, it probably doesn’t help that I don’t like tofu, but for some reason I just thought these might taste like fettucine but not have all the calories in . . .  WRONG! It wasn’t so much the taste, but the texture. The only way I can describe it is, ‘gelatinous’. So weird, urghhh, I tried a few fork fulls, but it just got worse, I nearly gagged by the third try – so off in to the trash they went. Oh well!

   

Breakfast is my fav meal of the day now. Last week I tried a ‘skinny’ omelet. This was just 1 egg plus 1 eggwhite, I added a piece of laughing cow cheese (it’s like Dairylee Nenna) cut up and a few green onions, then flipped the omelet over. Really nice and tasty, very cheesy ;) served with 2 slices of Sara Lee light wholewheat bread – total 5pp

Confession – I don’t like Chobani yogurts!! This is the second time I’ve tried a fruit one. I prefer just plain greek yogurt, my fav brand is Stoneyfield ‘Oikos’ Apparently they have some that have chocolate on the bottom or caramel, but I have yet to find these in the store.  I don’t mind the Chobani plain greek yogurt, but these fruit ones…. they are 5pp per pot!!  I’d rather have my fresh fruit on the side! That’s just too many points in a yogurt for my liking. I couldn’t even eat all of this one. It was pomegranate and the seeds were very hard!

This is one of my favorite breakfasts, I had it this morning (not this plate but one similar) 2 Kellogs low fat wholewheat waffles (2pp each) and a tblsp of Better N Butter PB, (1pp) and fruit on the side. This morning I had a banana and 1/2 cup worth of blackberries and raspberries – it was perfect!

Last week I made Chicken Parmesan from the Eating for Life cookbook. A 4oz chicken breast, breadcrumbs, marinara sauce and low fat cheese (total 6pp), served with salad greens AND (a new find this week) Green Giant green beans w/almonds. This box is WW endorsed, only 1pp per serving (3 servings in a box, which I just halved for me and hubby). I really liked these, better than just plain frozen green beans. I bought more boxes when I went back to the store and had them again later in the week with another meal!

 

And finally, Gina’s Asian grilled chicken (leftovers) ended up on a salad for my lunch. Very Yummy (total 5pp, inc. lite dressing)

This is more like it . .

On my quest for a yummy Indian meal (well, it wasn’t really a quest, I just happened to stumble on this while in a new grocery store) I found this last week . . . .

Oh my goodness, I thought I’d died and gone to heaven when I tried this!!!  I love Indian food. Chicken Tikka Masala is my all time favorite dish, and second to that is Chicken Korma. My sister has a wonderful WW frozen meal she can get in England that I tried last year when I was home… this one (not the one above, but the one below) that I found in my local grocery store just didn’t come anywhere close to being as good….

 

Looked ok on the box, but it came out looking like this….

hardly any sauce at all!  Look at the ‘Tandoor Chef’ one below! The nice thing is the rice is in a separate compartment so it doesn’t soak up all the sauce.

 

Look at ALL that sauce on the plate – YUM! I think there’s only 4 pieces of chicken in this, but they were quite large, and were real ‘white’ pieces of chicken, it was a perfect portion size. I tell you, this meal did not taste like it had been frozen at all. I was in awe of how good it was.  Oh, and the pp, 10!  I thought that a bit high for a lunch (for me anyway), but I indulged in it last Friday cos I’d had such a good WI that day ;-)

Hubby loves Indian food too, so I had to rave to him about this. I wanted him to try it, so I went out on Saturday and bought two more boxes for dinner that night, AND I picked up the frozen box of Naan bread (same brand). The Naan was 5pp each. So for a total of 15pp we had an awesome ‘take-out’ at home. Hubby said this should be a our regular Saturday night ‘take-out’! Not that we have ever had take-out on a regular basis  . . . . but I think we will now!

The store I found this in btw, is Natural Grocers. It just opened up near us. I’ve never seen anything like this in my regular store.

This post is getting rather long, I’ll leave the rest of my photos for another day, but before I go, let me show you my new toy. . . . .  :-)

Doin the Happy Dance!

Weigh In day today, AND . . . .  I’m down 1.8lb :-)  Yay, super happy about that.  I stuck with eating well, but haven’t exercised since Monday!  Don’t know if it’s my allergies or if I’m starting to get a head cold, but I haven’t had much energy this week. I just didn’t feel like working out after Monday, so I didn’t force myself to.

Haven’t taken many pictures of food this week either! I did take a picture of these . . . . goodies from home!

 

My sister sent some chocolate for my daughter ( that we can’t buy over here) and with it she added in some WW stuff for me. Drinking chocolates, jello mixes and ‘pudding’ mixes, AND my favorite ‘Curly Wurly’ bar. These are long strips of thin caramel covered in chocolate, I used to love them as a kid and when my sis told me there are only 3pp each I begged her to send some :-) (well, I didn’t really have to beg, I just simply had to ask) She’s the best! Thank you Nenna.

I wish I could buy more WW products around here (and I’m not talking about Smart Ones or Progresso soup stuff). It’s all about the visual for me (I know I’m a marketers dream!) I want to see actuall Weight Watchers packages like this. . . 

and this . . . .

I really like the look of the new packaging for WW (it just really keeps me motivated when I have stuff like this in the house) but I haven’t seen much of it in my own stores. I’ve never seen their brand breads or wraps, and the only cheese we can get is grated four cheese or mexican, and mozarella string cheese. I’ve seen a package for smoked string cheese which I’d love to try, but again there isn’t any in our stores :( Of course I know it’s not all about the packaging. Most other brands are just the same in points if you look at the labels… still, I’m just sayin – I’m like a kid in a candy store… I want to see the pretty wrappers too ;-)

It’s that time of year . . .

for BLOOD Oranges :-)

I remember having these as a kid in England and being fascinated at the color of them. Kristen loves these! Well, when I say she loves them, what I mean is she loves to just squeeze the juice out between her teeth and leave most of the flesh in tact! She WILL NOT eat the flesh of an orange?!!! I shouldn’t complain, it took her years to even want to try an orange. She tried when she was little and I guess it was just too acidic for her! Finally she is liking the juice from the orange, just not the flesh…. I guess it’s a start!

We both love the Blood Orange, when you slice in to it and see how red it is, I think it looks amazing. I showed hubby tonight and he thought it looked rather ‘weird’, but he did eat some. I think these are only available a certain time of year (at least around here) so I will have to get more. They are super juicy and sweet.  I also got some Tangelos this week, which I’m discovering are very nice juicy oranges too.

I’m in the habit of watching Ellie Krieger’s cooking show again. Most of them seem to be repeats, but I still like watching. This week she made some super easy Spicy Tomato-Tortilla Soup. You can get the recipe HERE.  It looks so easy I had to try it.

It’s simply onions sautéed with garlic and a jalapeno, then add cumin and oregano, then chicken stock and diced tomatoes. I didn’t have a jalapeno pepper in so I just added a tin of Rotel tomatoes to give it that spice! OMGosh – SPICY!!!!  Well for me it was, but I have a very bland ‘wussy’ English palette ;-)  This soup though has got to be barely 1pt per cup and it is tasty. I think next time I will just use half the can of spicy tomatoes or none at all and just have it as a tomato soup. Would be rather nice with a small grilled cheese sandwich. 

Or if you want soup and a salad – how about this for a 1pt salad!! This is shredded butter lettuce, tomatoes AND my new fav this week coleslaw mix! I added 1 tblsp lite blue cheese dressing to the coleslaw and sprinkled it over the salad. You can add whatever protein you like.

Lunch today was this. . . .

 

1 bag is one serving – 7pp. It was really good, think I’ll be keeping a few of these in the freezer :-)