Biscuit Pizza

I had a hankering for pizza today but didn't want to make a big ordeal about it, so I turned to my trusty easy pizza method.

Ingredients

1 can of refrigerated biscuits (I had homestyle on hand)
marinara sauce (or tomato sauce with added pizza seasonings)
cheddar cheese
mozzerella cheese
toppings

Directions:

Place each biscuit next to each other in the middle of a greased cookie sheet. Flatten them out to enlarge the 'crust'. They should be touching. Add a spoonful of sauce to each biscuit, then top with cheese and toppings of your choosing. Cook 10- 12 minutes at 400 degrees.

This makes for a great playgroup snack because the biscuits make a great individual serving. Today's pizza was only 80 calories a serving. Unfortunately I went overboard and ate 6!!

Peanut Butter Choco Crunch Balls

After being on vacation and eating fast food and cookies every day, I came home with a lot of cravings and no desire to return to logging my food. But, considering my body is already showing the consequences of such free eating with no exercise, back on the band wagon I go! I was hungry for something chewy and chocolate yesterday so I did a search through all the food blogs I recently discovered and decided on fitfoodiefinds.com and her array of simple 'healthy' recipes. I would have liked to try her raw brownie chews or her almond joy chews but they require dates and there are none in my cupboard. Instead I ended up making her peanut butter choco crunch balls with a slight variation.



Ingredients:

1 cup corn chex
1/4 c rolled oats
1/4 c. peanut butter
1/4 c. honey
1 TB cocoa powder

I crunched up the corn chex in a bag then mix all the remaining ingredients together. Use a TB or cookie scoop and shape into balls. Makes 10 - 12 balls.

I think the honey is a little overpowering and unfortunately now regular peanut butter is treating me the same as natural peanut butter so though they taste good, I can't handle eating them. Aaron really likes them though and is happy to finish my share! If I were to make them again, I would probably cut the honey back to 2 or 3 TB and the same for the peanut butter. Or add more oats.

Today's Food

 Actually maxed out the iron and leveled out the protein! Amazing. I still have a few calories, but I just don't know how to get the calcium without adding more carbs :/ I could drink a glass of milk but it would look like this:

A big chunk of my iron came from a bowl of shredded wheat. 90 (whatevers) of iron! Wow! I wonder what kind of iron I would get from wheatberries...

My other big nutrient dense meal was an egg omelet: 2 eggs scrambled in milk, topped with spinach, cheese, ham, colored bell peppers and spiced with salt, pepper, and basil (key flavoring). I made it for breakfast and then needed a big chunk of protein and calcium at the end of the day so I made another one. I really need to explore some other options so I can have more variety in my menu.

Food Diary

I tried really hard to meet my nutrient requirements today. It took a lot of extra calories to do it, and though I didn't completely  obtain my goal, I got pretty darn close!! That pesky iron gets me every time :p

Snow Ice Cream

Woke up starving and despite all the effort I put in to figuring out the best nutrient dense breakfast, the first thing I ate today was snow ice cream. I have been anticipating a snow day of this depth since moving here. 4 - 8 inches. LOVE it!! So, I took a bowl and scooped up snow to the top, added 1 cup of sugar, 1 cup of milk, a tsp of vanilla and voila!! Vanilla ice cream. There is still plenty of clean snow on the ground, so I may try the other popular recipe floating around:

big bowl of snow (gallon?)
can of sweetened condensed milk
1 tsp vanilla extract

The ice cream I made had a good flavor, but it was a little gritty from the sugar granules. I could probably get away with only 3/4 c. of sugar. Topped with cantalope and it was dreamy :)

Now to find something a little more nutritious........

I have changed the nutrients I am tracking to really focus on calcium, protein, iron, and fiber intake. Man those are tough to meet the recommended daily allowance!! I keep going through my recipes trying to find the most bang for my buck and pretty much have decided that without my smoothies full of protein powder and greens, I won't have much luck getting my RDA. To make my life easier, I have put the breakfast/lunch recipes with the highest ratings in these categories here as a quick reference. 

This is a really yummy smoothie but I am all out of mango at this point but I do have cantalope in the fridge so I was curious about the nutrition would be effected with using the cantalope instead of the mango. Interesting that they provide opposite vitamins: mango is calcium & iron while cantalop is protein. If I add a kale leaf to the mix it will up the calcium to 12, protein to 8, iron to 15, and fiber stays at 3.

I think this is the power meal right here! Look at those  numbers! I think it may be worth all those calories:)  

This is a recipe I came across today but haven't made. This is not the end product for nutrition but more like a scenario. I want to cut down on the calories and hadn't decided which sugar would best serve the recipe. My guess is that I can scale back on the coconut or even cut out the sugar since the coconut is already sweetened. Once I've made it I'll have a better idea of what works for flavoring but for now it creates a good picture for the other things I am tracking.

As I look at the various nutritional data for these foods, it is interesting the reaction I get from my mind. Looking at the fact the blueberries have no offering except calories makes me want to choose another fruit. However, I have to remind myself that just because it says 0 across the board for these nutrients, they don't have value. A search on http://nutritiondata.self.com/facts/fruits-and-fruit-juices/10507/2 tells me that these babies are full of manganese and a good source of fiber - even if MFP doesn't show it. I am reminded that eating a variety of fruits and vegetables is really the best way to go. 

Ricotta Spinach & Tomato Quesadilla

Over at neverhomemaker.com she has a recipe for Lunch "Calzone" For One which is basically a quesadilla with ricotta cheese, greens, and tomatoes. It looked good the other day but I thought I was out of ricotta cheese so didn't make it. Today as I cleaned out the fridge I discovered I did have just a tiny bit left in the bottom of the container at the back of the fridge. Score!

I am a fairly picky tomato eater. As a child I would only eat a fresh tomato in a BLT. At this point in my life I can appreciate a good tasting tomato though I still won't eat the ones that come in a salad unless it is diced and hidden with lettuce and other salad goodies. I tried popping a cherry or grape tomato once just to see if I would like it. Nope. That being said, I was a little hesistant to put fresh tomato inside this 'calzone'. The tomatoes ended up a little cooked and added a great flavor. I ended up really liking this concoction. I used spinach for my greens then added basil, garlic powder, and Italian seasoning as the spices. With it only being 159 calories, I decided to play with the recipe a little bit.

Remember the kale & butternut quesadilla? I have been trying to think of ways to cut down on that 600 calorie beauty and wondered how kale and butternut would taste in this 'calzone'. Turns out is delicious for only 240 calories. YES! So, here is the basic recipe for the final product.

Ingredients

1 flour tortilla
2 TB ricotta cheese
2 kale leaves
1/4 c. diced butternut squash
1/4 c. diced tomatoes
chili powder
pepper
basil
Italian seasoning
garlic powder

Directions

In a saute pan, wilt the kale leaves (Pioneer Woman did it in olive oil. I was using a nonstick pan and didn't even add cooking spray). Remove from heat.

In same pan, saute butternut squash until tender. Add a dash of chili powder for seasoning. Remove from heat when done.

In pan, heat tortilla on both sides til warm, then spread ricotta cheese on the top side. Spread the tomatoes on top of the ricotta cheese. Add pepper, then kale leaves, and finally the squash. Top with the remaining seasonings.

Use a spatula to fold the tortilla in half and create a quesadilla. I like to flip it over on the side that became the top to make sure it is nice and browned and everything is warmed through.

Enjoy!

Week 5 Weigh in

Last Week - 176.8
This Week - 177.5

Definitely headed in the wrong direction. Glad I didn't put any $$ into the pot after all :p I really should start taking measurements today and track that as well because that is where the big changes will show themselves I think. On the flip side, I haven't been doing as much cardio over the last week either as I focused on the exercise videos that are great for strengthening muscles but not so much for calorie usage.

Yesterday I felt like being more productive around the house so I cleaned instead of exercising. I don't know if I had more energy because I didn't spend an hour on the treadmill or because I had a 'to-do' list I was working off of. Perhaps a little bit of both. Today I just want to crawl back in bed and sleep.....

*******

I was just looking through my previous posts and saw the entry from Jan 3rd. It said I would weigh 176.8 in 5 weeks if I continued to maintain that eating habit. What do you know. It was right. Kind of. I have been in that 176 range the last 3 weeks. I've been eating all my calories and here I am. I have had a few over days, but not many in the big picture. At this point the MFP says that I will be around 171-172 in 5 weeks if I continue my eating/exercise habits. So, we will see at the beginning of March what my weight looks like.

Chocolate Peanut Butter Oatmeal

Aaron's breakfast of preference is oatmeal. This kid should not have any problems with cholesterol. The family we live with every once in awhile would offer to make him oatmeal and add in chocolate chips. Aaron takes after his Gma and LOVES chocolate. The typical bowl of oatmeal I make for Aaron is this:

1/4 - 1/2 c. dry regular or quick oats
double amount of water
craisins
cinnamon
brown sugar to sweeten
milk to cool it down

Well, once he had the chocolate chips, he always wanted them. I usually put enough brown sugar in there that he did not need the extra sugar from the chips. I was playing with cocoa powder in my smoothies at the time and realized that the cocoa powder didn't have any extra sweetener in it, so if he wanted the chocolate flavor, adding the cocoa powder would be a way to do it without adding extra sugar to the mix. He was skeptical at the first introduction, but was soon converted and has requested chocolate oatmeal every day since. Whatever he doesn't finish at breakfast becomes lunch and sometimes a second bowl is requested. I think this is week 3 of this menu.

Gradually I have decreased the sugar amount because I have a hard time believing that chocolate oatmeal for breakfast is a great thing. Matthew made the point that this chocolate oatmeal was like eating a no bake cookie, but as we listed off the ingredients in the cookie, we realized it was missing the peanut butter. Yesterday I decided to make a bowl of chocolate oatmeal for myself but add in peanut butter to see how it would taste. Yep, it's like a no bake cookie for breakfast! YUM!!  With 1/2 c of oatmeal it was a really filling breakfast at only 318 calories without the milk. I really didn't get hungry until the late afternoon where normally I am starving by 11 am. I can easily spend 300 calories on a smoothie and piece of toast and not feel full. This is great for my iron (16) and protein (12) levels too. The only trade-off is the high carbs (and possibly sugars) but I am not worried about that as much as I am about the iron.

So here is my Chocolate Peanut Butter Oatmeal recipe for 318 calories:

1/2 c. rolled oats
1 c. water
2 TB craisins

Cook in microwave for 2 minutes

Add

1 TB brown sugar
1 TB unsweetened cocoa powder
1 TB peanut butter
dash of cinnamon

Mix until well combined. Add milk if desired.

I like the cranberries in it enough that I am thinking that next time I make no bake cookies I might add cranberries to them :)

Homemade No Bake Granola Bars

Someone just posted pics of granola bars they made on Facebook. This is an idea I have toyed with for awhile but never managed to make it to a 'do' stage. Not today. This is the link to the original recipe on Penniesandpancakes.blogpost.com. I think I will probably be spending some more time on her site because this is the kind of thing that is right up my alley!

I made two different versions: Corn chex craisins, & almond granola bar and Spooner crumb craisin granola bar

Here is the ingredient list from the original recipe:

INGREDIENTS
1/2 cup honey
2/3 cup packed brown sugar  
1/4 cup peanut butter (crunchy)
1/4 cup unsalted butter
4 cups Quick Oats (not rolled oats)
2 cups crispy rice cereal
3 teaspoons vanilla

My adaptations (I halved the recipe to create the two different versions):

Corn Chex Craisin & Almond Bar

1/4 c. honey
2 T + 1/2 tsp brown sugar
2 T peanut butter (creamy)
2 T unsalted butter
1 1/2 tsp vanilla
2 C Quick Oats
1 c. corn chex
3 TB craisins
3 TB whole almonds (next time would probably chop them)

Spooner Crumb Craisin Bars


1/4 c. honey
2 T + 1/2 tsp brown sugar
2 T peanut butter (creamy)
2 T unsalted butter
1 1/2 tsp vanilla
2 C Quick Oats
1 C frosted mini spooner crumbs (you know, all the crushed spooners at the bottom of the bag)
3 TB craisins

Evaluation:

Both were very good, but the spooners were way sweet!! but I liked the consistency of them. I think if I were to use the crumbs again I would probably just put in a TB of brown sugar or leave it out completely. I would like to add other things to them as well, but the calorie content is already pretty high. I cut the corn chex version into 9 bars and they were 183 calories! I made the spooner bars smaller and came out with 16, but it is still 92 calories a bar. 

Sludge Smoothie -Mango, Banana, Blueberry & Spinach Smoothie

Sludge Smoothie. Doesn't that just sound so appetizing? But that is the kind of look a smoothie takes on when you add berries to a green mix. Thankfully I can look past the color though and just enjoy the taste. I picked up a bunch of mangoes last week and discovered a great smoothie combo to use them up.

1/2 c milk
1 TB protein powder
spinach (I used at least 1 cup's worth)
1 mango
1/2 frozen banana
1/2 - 1 c frozen blueberries

Yum.

NY Ballet today

Yesterday I did the Strong Knees video again and today did the New York Ballet. It was fairly easy to follow and has some great potential. I don't know how many calories I burned doing it, but I can see how it would tone my muscles even if I don't burn a lot of calories. Interestingly, many of the exercises in Strong Knees are also ones used in the ballet video.

I subscribed to the GAMES txts for Redbox therefore get a free game rental once a month. Twice now I've gotten a Just Dance game. The first one I did by myself and the boys watched. This time though, I had a 'date' night with Jared and made him dance with me. In just a few songs he was hooked! Then Aaron got home and he was hooked too. It was so fun watching them dance! It is good to know that it would be a game they would enjoy and choose to play. I think it helped that One Direction's song What Makes You Beautiful is on it. The boys (especially Aaron) LOVE that song and are familiar with the video. Aaron played the song over and over. He was getting pretty good at it by the time I had to return it. Generously, a friend from high school has offered to send me her game because she doesn't care for the Wii version. So excited about that!! I could spend hours playing it (and I KNOW it burns a lot of calories ;))

I had lunch today with a new friend. I had a grilled chicken avacado sandwich. It was really good, but I probably shouldn't have eaten the fries because based on the closest option available on MFP, I ate over 1000 calories in that meal. ouch. I should walk on the treadmill and burn some more, but once Aaron is home that isn't an option. I have a small offering of calories left for the day. boo.

Homemade Quinoa Bread

Quinoa Bread courtesy of neverhomemaker.com

I love that you can actually see the quinoa!

I have been trying to get back in the habit of making bread as opposed to buying it. This recipe was one of the ones I found while looking for dinner ideas the other night. I happened to buy a bag of quinoa in the last few weeks, made a recipe with it and decided it would be really hard to use it all up. I think I have found the perfect use of it and may even need to buy more!!! (Though we will see how that holds up after everyone reports back from lunch today).

The recipe is really easy and seems to be pretty forgiving. Here is side by side of what I did vs the recipe:

What you'll need . . . 

• 1 cup raw quinoa (we used red quinoa, but any kind will do) (I used white)
• 2 cups of water
• 1/2 cup raw walnuts, chopped (I used 1/4 c chopped pecans but you could probably leave them out)
• 2 teaspoons active dry yeast (used instant yeast)
• 3/4 cup water, wrist temperature
• 1/3 cup agave nectar (again, we used Xagave) (1/2 c. honey + 1/8 tsp baking soda)
• 1/4 cup sunflower oil (or canola)
• 2 tablespoons flax meal (didn't have any so left it out)
• 3 tablespoons grainy mustard (ommitted)
• 2 cups unbleached white bread flour (used regular all purpose flour)
• 1 cup whole wheat bread flour (used white whole wheat flour)
• 1/2 teaspoon salt

I think she only made one loaf from her dough, but I divided mine into two which made the final product only 93 calories a slice (19 slices in a loaf). I loved the pop of the quinoa when I tested the dough. I like that the quinoa adds most of the grain for the bread so it doesn't require as much flour either. I probably would have used more nuts if I actually had walnuts instead of pecans, and the flax would have really boosted the nutty texture too. It is really good as a toast!! For some reason all last night it was calling to me as a peanut butter sandwich (probably because I've been reading up on making my own nut butters too) so I finally got one for lunch today. Yep, it works!! I think I prefer it as toast with butter and honey though.

Taste test: jam or honey. Jam won this time.

I did find with the honey substitute it browns really quickly in the oven. She says to cover it with foil to continue the baking without the browning but even then it still got really brown on top. I wasn't sure if it was really done or not when I took it out, and there aren't any dough spots in the middle, but it is a really moist bread (which is probably why I prefer it as toast). 

Banana Bread Minute Muffin

Banana Bread Minute Muffin from fitfoodiefind.com

Ingredients:

quick oats
mashed banana
egg white
choc chips or other add-ins

Mix in mug and bake in microwave for 1 min 30 sec.

She claims it tastes like banana bread, but I think the real thing is better. However, for someone who is gluten free it probably will satisfy the craving. I added mini-chocolate chips. In her picture there is more yellow so I am thinking she used the whole egg and not just the white. With the chocolate it is over 200 calories, but it makes for a nice quick snack.

Pumpkin Smoothie

Pumpkin Smoothie from edibleperspective.com

While scouring for dinner recipes last night I ended up on a few different sites that have me in the kitchen experimenting today. This smoothie is one of them. It is pretty good though Aaron didn't care for it. I think it is actually the protein powder he doesn't like because it has an almost bitter taste to it though I try to mask it. The banana adds a nice sweet flavor.  I did not add any spinach though I probably could have and been fine with the taste. After 2 servings (8 oz each)  and a banana minute muffin, I am feeling rather full though I will probably finish it off.

Weigh in Week 4

Last week - 176.4
Today - 176.8

Well, it isn't heading in the right direction but it is close to maintaining. Water weight. Gotta love it.

I have my videos and am excited about them! Yesterday I did Strong Knees. Oh MAN!!! The exercises are so simple, but boy do they work those muscles. The premise is that you have to strengthen the leg muscles that support the knees so there is a segment for each muscle group. Good stuff.

Relief Society put on a healthy workshop last night and had a zumba class, strength training, healthy snacks, and green smoothie segments. More good stuff. I enjoyed the zumba. It was a little tricky to keep up, but it was fun. I liked being able to try some varieties of smoothies too. I can't wait for the email that has all the recipes!! Strength training.. well, I need to do a lot more of that!

Videos

I've been on Amazon looking at exercise videos and decided to see what videos our library carries. Unfortunately they do not have many of the ones that I do like, but I discovered some I am anxious to try. Two of them are meant to strengthen/rehabilitate the knees and two are ballet videos. One of the videos I really like doing before had a lot of ballet moves in it and I loved that! So, I am anxious for them to come in so I can try them out!

Here they are on Amazon:

Strong Knees
Quickfix Rx: Kneehab for Knee Health with Jill Miller
The Ballet Workout Shaping & Toning
New York City Ballet Workout 1 & 2

Easy Hamburger Soup & Herb Quick Bread update

It has been so cold here the last few days I wanted soup for dinner. For some reason a barley soup was calling me. I remembered I had a recipe on the blog so that is what I went with: Easy Hamburger Soup. Man it is so good! Last time I had made it with turkey because that was what I had but wished I'd had beef. This time I had the beef. Even Aaron said he liked the meat (which is saying quite a lot). He probably would have finished the entire thing if we weren't pressed for time. I didn't have celery but it didn't need it. I added a kale leaf too. I probably should have added more though. So delicious!!

This is a great soup for a bread. I went with my Herb Quick Bread but wanted something cheesy too so I just added a cup of cheese to the dry mix. Since I have been more calorie conscious I used 1 3/4 c whole wheat flour and 1 1/4 c all purpose flour instead of 3 c. all purpose flour. And like last time, I subbed Italian seasoning and basil for the caraway seeds.

Today I had them for lunch - even better the next day. I decided I actually prefer crackers to the bread in my soup, but the bread is really good with cream cheese on it! (Thanks to Aaron for discovering that tidbit!)

Homemade Poptarts

Raspberry Pie Tart Pops aka Homemade Poptarts

The recipe calls for a pie sheet, but I decided to try it with a can of crescent rolls. Next time I will use the pie crust sheet. Notice that each 'square' is cut in half. One side will have the jelly and the other will be the top.

Each tart got 1/2 tsp of jelly. We decided to try two different flavors: strawberry and black raspberry. The top left one has already been folded over.

Seal each tart with a fork.

Time to put it in the oven! 

Baked at 400 degrees for 8-10 minutes.

The recipe tells you how to add frosting, but we decided to just do sprinkles. We added butter first so the sprinkles would have something to stick to.

Time for taste testing!

Not quite a thumbs up or thumbs down. The crescent rolls were not the right flavor for a pop tart. It is almost like it is too savory or thick. But the concept works and is a great one. Calorie wise I think the pie sheet would be better too.

Green Onions

I have known for awhile that you can re-grow green onions from their bulb. I finally decided to do it though after going through a lot of bunches in a row. It makes me so happy to see such greenery :)

A tip for doing this yourself:

You can cut all the way to the white and have a short piece to start with, but make sure that it does not get submersed in the water or it will get water logged and rot. This is a huge deal! You can see my little nub there on the bottom right of the jar. It was regrowing but it ended up in the water at one point and then it rotted.

10 days growth - ready for some trimming!