Breakfast!! The most important meal of the day!

Who doesn't need a few breakfast ideas? Good gravy if I don't have anything planned it's a granola bar.  That is about as boring as you can get! Started my first week of exercising with my new fabulous accountability partners on Friday (You know who you are!) and I wanted to have a snack for us after especially one that the kids would eat.  I think it often helps keep your blood sugar stabilized throughout the day to eat frequent little meals so these ideas make a perfect mid morning snack or 2nd breakfast or if you are a Hobbit "Elevensies".  First:

 Fruit and Yogurt Parfait

This is not rocket science.  My husband loves these.  My kids love these.  McDonald's has them on the dollar menu.  You can mix and match a million different fruit and yogurt combos (again I can't stress enough how much kids like choosing and building their own food). One 3 pt yoplait yogurt and 2 pts worth of granola (differ by brand, check your label), beautiful pick me up for 5 pts! You may remember a very popular PB&J parfait we made here.

Next up: Egg Mugs

Mediterranean Egg Mug

This is Hungry Girl's specialty here is her Greek Mug. There are more ideas to be found here and there and everywhere.  Make your own! I bet my husband would go crazy for a Mexican one with chorizo and salsa. Here is how mine went.

Chopped 3 baby bella mushrooms, handful of cherry tomatoes, handful of green onion chopped and a handful of black olives.  Spray big coffee mug with cooking spray, toss in veges and microwave one minute.  Now Hungry Girl uses Egg Beater liquid on these 1/2 cup = 2 eggs.  I am not opposed to Egg Beaters, I just didn't have any! 2 eggs in, you also want to add any seasonings to go with your flavor here, I added a dash of garlic salt and a dash of italian seasoning, stir up to scramble with your veges.  Microwave 45 sec to 1 min.  Add cheese and stir.  I added 1-2 Tbsp feta.  Microwave another 45 sec to 1 min.  Perfect Mediterranean Egg Scramble, no dirty pan, 2.5 min, 5-6 pts.  This would be really fun if you had overnight guests.  Set out a variety of toppings and let everyone build there own egg scramble and get some big huge mugs easy and quick.  Only warning I would give, especially for kids.  These are really hot! I scalded my tongue on a moist tomato steaming hot from the bottom of the cup. There was a lot of stirring to release the heat and a lot of blowing on the spoon involved.  No burn injuries please.

One last breakfast recommendation!

Protein Shakes

I take my magic bullet and I even make it right in the cup piece so after I blend... I am ready to go.  I add a scoop of this

and a scoop of this

1 cup of milk and then if I want a combo flavor with the chocolate I may add one of these

I can say enough about these shakes.  7 pts but the whey keeps your blood sugar stabilized ALL day, you hardly ever feel hungry so you snack a lot less.  Sometimes I will even make one for my kids.  They feel like they are getting away with having a chocolate milk shake for breakfast but they are getting their fruit, their milk, healthy protein and more concentration power especially the little ones in school! Another tip is keep a bag of flaxseed in your freezer, add a tbsp to your parfaits or protein shakes, you won't notice but the health benefits are limitless!

So no more breakfast skipping and I will also try not to keep going to that dreaded granola bar fall back so often, not with these much more satisfying and delicious (and simple!) choices.  Eat a good breakfast everyone!

Labor Day weekend!

 Blessed are all who fear the LORD,
   who walk in obedience to him.
You will eat the fruit of your labor;
   blessings and prosperity will be yours. Psalm 128:1-2

It's Labor Day weekend, I thought I would start things off with a verse about how walking with God in obedience and fear allows us to reap what we sow and how fitting that there is a reference to the fruits of our labor.  There are weeks that I feel so low still, like I am not going to get through, I have an all out pity party about how difficult it is for me to deal with this enormous mountain in front of me. But He has been so faithful to reward me with success as I plod along ever unsure of my steps, stretching my faith to be sure in His.  I lost another 1.7 lbs this week, I am at a total loss of 31.9 lbs.  I can hardly believe it! This was supposed to be such a hard week, I ate a lot of junk last weekend and even this week I struggled to keep things in check. And finding the time for running has been challenging as well and I have only been able to get out there twice this week.  But everyday I worked at logging my food (even when I was afraid of what I might find!) Labor Day is a holiday that rewards most of us a day off from our labors, a well deserved break and so fitting I think that it happens right at the end of summer. And how wonderful the promise attached with this verse.  I hope you all find a way this weekend to "eat the fruit of your labor" relax, do something you love and be proud of who you are and what you accomplish.  Speaking of fruit...I made a rather elaborate holiday weekend breakfast for my family today that highlighted one of my favorite fruits...the peach!

Stay tuned for an upcoming blog entry all about this gorgeous creature! This morning we had:

Grilled Balsamic-Glazed Peaches

adapted from Southern Living Magazine

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup balsamic vinegar
• 3 tablespoons brown sugar
• 1 teaspoon cracked pepper
• 1/8 teaspoon salt
• 6 firm, ripe peaches, halved

• Combine first 4 ingredients in a saucepan. Bring to a boil; reduce heat, and simmer 2 to 3 minutes.
• Place peaches in a shallow dish. Pour vinegar mixture over peaches, tossing gently to coat. Let stand 10 minutes.
• Remove peaches from vinegar mixture
• Place peach halves, cut sides down, on a grill pan.

•  Grill, covered with grill lid, over medium heat (300° to 350°) 5 minutes on each side or until firm and golden

Top with whipped cream (lite) and a little drizzle of syrup (sugar free), Yum yum!  3 pts for 2 halves including topping!

I think these make a perfect dessert option too, you could do ice cream instead of whipped topping.  Or they would be good as a side dish with pork tenderloin, just drizzle with the remaining balsamic vinegar and a tsp of olive oil!! Yummy!

We also had...

I grew up eating Eckrich Farms Smoky Links, and I am not going to lie, I miss them a little bit but they are 5 pts for 2, these are 2 pts for 2.  Much better!!

And my hubby made (with a little help and bossiness from me!):

Herb and Brie Omelets

Betty Crocker

2 large eggs

1 Tbsp chopped fresh basil

1 Tbsp fresh chopped rosemary

1 Tbsp fresh chopped Thyme

2 Tbsp milk

1/8 tsp salt

1/8 tsp garlic salt

dash pepper

1 oz brie cheese, rind removed and sliced

 Chop herbs, these are the ones I grow, feel free to alternate! Whisk herbs, milk, salts and pepper and eggs.  Pour into skillet (sprayed with cooking spray) and let cook undisturbed until set. Add slices of brie and fold over.  Cover with lid for an additional 1-2 minutes until cheese is melted, eat immediately.  The whole omelet is 7 pts however with the sausage and the grilled peaches it was too rich for me to eat the whole thing so I ate 2/3 (5 pts) which is great because the extra 1/3 is a good portion for a little one! So my breakfast 5 + 2 + 3 = 10 pts.  More than usual for breakfast but this was a super celebratory holiday breakfast and it is weigh in day!

I hope you all have a wonderful labor day weekend with your families and friends.  I hope you get to enjoy the fruits of your labor! I hope you feel blessed! I am off to swim in my parents pool, doesn't get much better than that!!!

Breakfast any time of the day!

I love doing breakfast for dinner, especially because my husband is usually the breakfast cook and so I can assign him that when I work late.  Tonight I had breakfast as a plan for the night and since I got out of work early I could make the recipes and he easily fell into his position as sou chef.  First order of business, Jillian Michael's had a Denver omelet on my meal plan from her cookbook but I decided to use the ingredients and make a big scramble. 

Denver Egg Scramble

It basically was red pepper and onion and salt and pepper and Mrs. Dash's Southwest sauteed in olive oil, add ham.  Add eggs (we did 8).  When almost done add cheese (1/2 cup sharp cheddar).  Voile. 8 servings, 4 pts. Tons of options, olive, feta, ham = Greek would be one we would could easily do.  Or how about tomato basil?  Yum. Eggs are so good. 

But I thought it needed somethings sweet and I had some of these to use up.

Hmmmm.... they are kind of like crepe consistency....what about Blintzes.  I couldn't decide on flavors so I made Apricot and Cherry.  Yummy!!!

Apricot Blintzes

Mix 1/2 cup softened fat free cream juice, 1/2 cup fat free ricotta cheese and 2 Tbsp light butter, 1/4 cup sugar, 1 tsp vanilla, lemon zest, 1 Tbsp lemon juice.  Put approx 3 Tbsp mixture into each of 5 egg roll wrappers, roll up and line in sprayed 9 x 13 (kind of like enchiladas).  Bake at 350 for about 10-15 min until heated through. Drizzle with sauce and a dusting of powdered sugar.  Apricot sauce:  2/3 cup sugar free apricot preserves, 1/3 cup OJ, 2 Tbsp light butter and 1 Tbsp lemon juice and more lemon zest.   Combine in pan and simmer, serve warm over blintzes. 

Now for the cherry variety...

Cherry Blintzes

Filling: the same as above except instead of lemon zest/juice I coarsely chopped a handful of dried cherries and through them in the mix. Sauce was obviously Cherry sugar free preserves and  I used prepared ocean spray cherry limeade (sugar free) instead of OJ.  Both types of blintzes are 6 pts.  I had cherry tonight.  I probably should have had 1/2 of each so I could try both kinds, guess who is having an apricot blintze in the morning.  This would make a great brunch food,or for a bridal or baby shower, yummy!

That's really all.  Brinner (Breakfast merging with dinner) took like 15 min to make and very delicious.  The 5 year old though is still being difficult and wouldn't eat.  She used to be much more adventurous however she was disturbed by the onions in her eggs and heaven only knows how something as delicious as a cherry cream cheese blintze couldn't appeal to her! More for us!!! 

Hope you can try them and enjoy too!

Something good and something bad!

Friday is weigh-in day and I didn't think I would have a good outcome because despite having a good week I had a bad day yesterday, party at work had me eating extravagantly all day.  However I still managed to lose 2 lbs! I am very happy to be past that 20 lb mark once and for all. 

The something bad is one of the naughty things I ate yesterday which was Brownie Goody Bars that I made.  I saw this recipe in my Betty Crocker newsletter that I get every week.  It sounded kind of weird a little to me but it had all these awards and accolades I assumed it must be worth it.  It had the nutrition info attached with but I didn't want to calculate until after I made them.  So I made them, I brought them to my work get together, they were awesome, extremely sweet so you can get by on a small one and when I got home and calculated 11 pts.  So not something you want to be eating everyday, well maybe you want to but you shouldn't.  Now I realize that not all of you reading this are struggling to lose weight, trust me it's a struggle, and even those of us that are it's important not to give up on the good things in life, but it is also very important to be smart about it and to count it.  I would recommend bringing these somewhere where you can share (I even made my coworkers take home most of the leftovers so I wouldn't be bringing a ton home!) I mean it's OK to have a little of these things but not a whole pan!
So here they are (with some friendly suggestions in italics):

Brownie Goody Bars

1

box (1 lb 2.4 oz) Betty Crocker® Original Supreme Premium brownie mix (Sorry Betty, I use Ghiradelli)

Water, vegetable oil and egg called for on brownie mix box

1

cup Betty Crocker® Rich & Creamy vanilla frosting (from 16 oz container) (I used cream cheese instead of vanilla)

1/2

cup salted peanuts, coarsely chopped

2

cups crisp rice cereal

2/3

cup creamy peanut butter

1 1/3

cups (8 oz) semisweet chocolate chips

1. Heat oven to 350°F (325°F for dark or nonstick pan). Grease bottom only of 9-inch square pan with cooking spray or shortening. (For easier cutting, line pan with foil, then grease foil on bottom only of pan.)
2. Make and bake brownies as directed on box. Cool completely.
3. Frost brownies with frosting. Sprinkle with peanuts; refrigerate while making cereal mixture.
4. Measure cereal into medium bowl; set aside. In 1-quart saucepan, melt peanut butter and chocolate chips over low heat, stirring constantly. Pour over cereal in bowl, stirring until evenly coated. Spread over frosted brownies. Refrigerate 1 hour or until set before cutting. For bars, cut into 4 rows by 4 rows. Store tightly covered at room temperature or in refrigerator. (They were refrigerated overnight and all morning, so when we went to cut into them for lunch they were really hard! I then left them out on the counter and they softened back up later for people to have seconds or take home leftovers, I had made a double patch in a 9x13 for my work, so I would recommend taking them back out of the fridge for at least 30 min before serving!)

Then for breakfast I decided to make myself a little special breakfast, I like to celebrate those weight loss mornings.  I sort of made this one up so here goes...

Amanda's Apple Cinnamon Waffles a la mode

So I toasted an Eggo Whole Grain Low Fat waffle.  Then I diced up one small apple, sauteed it with 1 tsp cinnamon, 1 Tbsp brown sugar and 1 Tbsp whipped butter until caramelized and starting to soften.  Then I took the toasted waffle, added 3 Tbsp of Vanilla Greek Yogurt and topped with the caramelized apple.  It was special and sweet and decadent tasting.  The points are a little tricky, Weight Watcher's confuses me a little in this area.  They say eat all the fruits and veges you want for free but if you put a fruit or veges in a recipe they charge you for them.  This is a bit confusing.  If you typed these ingredients in to your point tracker separately it would be 6 pts however by adding them into a recipe builder it charged 2 pts for the apple for a total of 8 pts. I tend to err on the side of the bigger number to play it safe but I find this a little confusing.  Even at 8 pts it felt like a special dessert rather than a breakfast and it was filling and satisfying so I am good with that.  Anyways I thought I would pass this a long.  I know for me, breakfast is where I get easily stuck in a rut, no no not another bowl of cereal.  Any idea outside of my usual list of 5 standbys is a nice change of pace.  Hope you all have a great weekend! Amanda

I promised you a breakfast delight...

...And here it is!  OK so I have to report first that I lost just over a pound this week, so I am trucking along  having lost over 11 lbs, slow and steady wins the race (although we all would adore quick and easy wouldn't we?) It's Easter weekend (lets see if I survive chocolate temptations but I know I can, I am loving the feeling of success to much to ruin it now!) and we always like to have a fun breakfast around our house, especially with Daddy having Friday off.  I always like to celebrate holidays and special occasions with my family with special meals.  There is something about celebration that equals food.  But seriously with kiddos I am always trying to make special memories so I don't want to give that up just because I also want better health for us. 

Lately I am totally obsessed with the Hungry Girl, have you heard of her? Here she is with her cartoon alter ego:

Her main goal in life is to make food as good for you as possible so you can eat more of it.  Her show is ultra-cheesy but she has so many great ideas that she grows on you.  My husband was shopping and he picked up a cereal that she uses a lot in her recipes for me and it had her cartoon picture on it and my 5 year old was like, "Hey, it's hungry girl!" She's been watching the show with me obviously.  Anyways she always attaches the WW points to her recipes which is awesome for me.  This week she did a breakfast episode of her show and it featured something called Cannoli-Stuffed French Toast! Are you kidding me, who doesn't want a cannoli for breakfast and you are telling me it's only 6 weight watchers points for four pieces including syrup and fruit topping! Count me in! So without further ado....

Cannoli-Stuffed French Toast Nuggets

this recipe is for one whole serving, I multiplied it by four

and made a serving for each of us,

each serving (4 nuggets) are 6 pts, amazing right!

Ingredients

• 3 tablespoons fat-free ricotta cheese
• 2 teaspoons mini semi-sweet chocolate chips
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 no-calorie sweetener packet
• 1 light hot dog bun (about 80 calories)
• 1/4 cup fat-free liquid egg substitute
• 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
• 2 teaspoons light whipped butter or light buttery spread
• 1/2 teaspoon powdered sugar
• Sugar-free pancake syrup, for topping, optional
• Fresh fruit for topping (we used strawberries and bananas)

Directions

In a small bowl, combine ricotta cheese, chocolate chips, and 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract, and sweetener, and mix well.

Split hot dog bun open lengthwise, without fully separating the 2 halves. Spoon ricotta mixture onto the bottom half of the bun. Gently press the top 1/2 down over the filling. Carefully slice into 4 "nuggets."

Mix egg substitute, cinnamon, and remaining 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract in a small bowl. Set aside.

Bring a skillet sprayed with nonstick spray to medium-high heat. Add butter and allow to coat the bottom of the skillet. Meanwhile, coat each nugget on all sides with the egg mixture. (You won't need to use all of the egg mixture.)

Once butter has melted, place nuggets in the skillet and, flipping occasionally, cook until golden brown on all sides, 3 to 4 minutes.

Plate your nuggets and sprinkle with powdered sugar. Top with syrup, if using. Enjoy!

With ricotta chocolate filling oozing out and strawberry banana topping and small drizzle of splenda syrup this was incredible and felt so decadent.  I paired it with a protein option that will be very helpful in getting good for you sausage for breakfast:

Jennie-O and another home run, sausages that are one point each! Awesome, thank you very much I'll take two!

So we had an amazing yummy breakfast and not only am I eating food that is better for me, I am not teaching my kids horrible habits and we still had a fun Good Friday celebratory breakfast.  And it was Oh So Good and pretty, next time you have to put on a breakfast try this sneaky recipe and everyone will ooh and ahh! Don't thank me, thank Hungry Girl!! Happy Good Friday everyone!