Side dishes, snack bars and status report

First things first, it's Friday, and I was really hoping since I took up jogging this week I would have a surprise boost in my weight loss but alas it was another even 2 lbs down! 22 lbs since I started this adventure.  Another 3 lbs to my next landmark  weight loss goal! Last time I was really doing good with weight loss with Lose it For Life a few years ago pre-2nd child I don't think I ever made it past 25 lbs so I am getting close! I am going to keep working on the jogging, I feel really good about doing it.  I actually struggled with the breathing thing more than anything.  I guess I am really out of shape, sad to say.  Looking forward to when that doesn't feel so hard for my lungs and heart (I shouldn't feel so old at 31 should I?)

My Mom told me where she got that yummy corn salad she made on Memorial Day, and guess what? I had it all along.  It's from Better Homes and Gardens which I subscribe to however the way I do magazines it is more likely that I would find it next June then anytime soon.  Without further ado....

Fresh Corn Salad

Ingredients:

•  8 ears corn, shucked
•  6 fresh tomatoes, chopped
•  2 cucumbers, peeled, seeded, and chopped
•  2 green onions, chopped
•  1 green bell pepper, seeded and chopped
•  1 jalapeño, seeded and chopped*
•  1/4 cup chopped cilantro
•  4 tbsp. white balsamic vinegar
•  3 tbsp. extra virgin olive oil

Directions:

1. Preheat grill to medium-high. Brush corn with a little olive oil. Grill corn until lightly browned, turning often to cook evenly; cool. When cool enough to handle, cut corn from cobs.
2. Toss corn with tomatoes, cucumbers, green onions, pepper, jalapeño, cilantro, vinegar, and the 3 tablespoons of olive oil. Season with salt and pepper. Toss and marinate at least 2 hours in the refrigerator before serving. Bring to room temperature to serve. Makes 8 servings.

*Hot chile peppers, such as jalapeños, contain oils that can burn skin and eyes. Avoid direct contact as much as possible. Wear plastic gloves. If using bare hands, wash hands well with soap and water. 
10 servings, 4 pts each

The next side dish I made was a watermelon salad for a family barbecue, I had heard about this combo and it sounded up my alley so I went for it, the critics seemed to like it so here goes...

Watermelon Mojito Summer Salad

Ingredients:

1/4 cup sugar

1/4 cup warm water

a pinch of salt

fresh lime juice

freshly grated lime zest

1 medium large watermelon (8-10 lbs)

1 cucumber thinly sliced

feta cheese crumbles

2 T fresh mint, preferably spearmint, finely chopped

2 T fresh basil

Directions:

1. In a small bowl, whisk sugar with 1/4 cup warm water and salt until sugar is dissolved. (I microwave mine with frequent stirring if it doesn't dissolve quickly in the warm water.) Stir in lime juice and zest. Cover and refrigerate until cool, about 1 hour. (Syrup can be made ahead, chilled and covered for up to 3 days.)

2. Cube watermelon into 1 inch pieces and add sliced cucumber and refrigerate until cold, about 1 hour. As close to serving time as possible, stir mint and basil into syrup and drizzle over watermelon pieces. Toss. Sprinkle with 1 cup feta cheese. Serve chilled.

1 full cup, 3 pts

Last but not least, I made some snack bars that I got from another fb cooking group for a concert picnic with friends last night, here is how they go:

Oatmeal Everything Bars

Mix together: 2 Cups rolled oats, 1 cup peanut butter (I used chunky), 1 cup flax seed, 1 cup honey, 1/2 cup dried cherries (chopped), 1/2 cup choc chips, 1/2 cup peanut butter chips, 2 scoops of chocolate whey protein powder.  Press into pan and put in fridge for at least 6 hrs (I would recommend actually the freezer because they aren't quite staying together for me!)  I put them in a pan that is smaller than a 9 x 13 it's like 8 x11, cutting them into 28 bars (4 x 7) they are 5 pts each.  Really sweet and good and with all those ingredients like honey, flax seed, whey protein and oats you can almost convince yourself they are healthy...

In another word from my picnic with friends, we had quite a healthy spread and I tried sushi for the first time.  I always was freaked out by the idea of it, I honestly didn't know anything about it! I had california rolls with avocado and crab and can anyone say WASABI!! I was hoping the wasabi would clear out my sinuses, no such luck.  I love it though.  So I guess while I am mentioning that let me recommend a product to you...

Hungry girl taught me about these:

Blue Diamond 100 calorie almond packs! I love the chocolate and the wasabi! Watch out, these bite! Gotta love portion control.  I keep one pack in my purse now at all times.  If my blood sugar starts sinking this is always just the right thing to perk me up!

All right, I need to quit advertising (hey why don't I get a kick-back from my endorsements???) and move on with my day, I need to do a lot before the big day tomorrow!! (You'll find out later what I am talking about if you don't know) One last thing, if all of you could recommend or add 5 of your friends that you think would be interested in the group to the page that would be cool! Thanks! Trying to spread the word.  Have an awesome Friday everyone!

Parties, Pizza and Parfaits, Oh My!

I went to bed last night dreading tomorrows weigh-in so much.  This week had seemed to get away from me and even though I did my best to count the points of every single thing that went in my mouth sometimes in some situations that amounts to a big fat guess! Take for instance the first P of today's post -  Parties.  We had a major holiday this week, Easter.  What did Easter bring, big buckets of candy sitting around my house and Sunday all you can eat brunch buffet with family.   While I had to do a lot of guessing (did my dollop of mashed potatoes look like about 3/4 cup?) or estimating (are all types of balsamic vinaigrette's made alike?) I still managed to come up with an estimate for my Easter dinner and I kept myself to one plate.  However when I came home and calculated this I had managed to use a large portion of my weekly points (which usually I hardly ever use).  After I made it through Sunday I still had other reasons to have a sense of foreboding about today's weigh-in.  First there is the candy, although I counted carefully every point of candy I consumed.  I don't know if that is exactly the right way to end every day using your point allowance leftover on these "empty calories."  Also we had such a busy week rushing around I had (for shame) Pizza hut twice this week and McDonalds and Arby's and even Kraft Mac n' Cheese (don't get me started on this one today!).  Nice.  This is why you haven't heard from me much, I haven't been cooking!!! Again I worked hard to count all those points but really can you eat these foods and still manage to lose weight?  I don't think that is exactly what they had in mind!   Well I am here to tell you that....YOU CAN! I prayed that I would at least break even when I stepped on the scale, I wasn't ready to suffer the blow of GAINING weight.  And lo and behold I lost approx 1 more pound.  I am just shy of 12 lbs now.  So I am here to tell you, you can survive parties.  I am sure being aware of how much I was planning to eat and counting every point despite worrying if they weren't the best use of my points helped me not just mindlessly eat with no awareness of what I was doing. 

This brings me to my next P....Pizza!  Although sometimes nothing hits the spot like a warm ooey, gooey greasy piece of pepperoni pizza.  After a cold miserable day in the garage during my Mom's garage sale (my mom is a trooper, she did two full days and I only did part of one day) we had a pepperoni pizza delivered to us in the garage and man it really hit the spot.  However, I was super interested in a recipe from my California Pizza Kitchen cookbook for Greek Pizza.  This yummy pie was packed with lots of fresh veggies and good for you proteins so although not much less in points then the regular greasy pizza I know this really is better for you by the merits of the fresh ingredients.  As an added bonus I was at Costco this week and they had a HUGE container of premade tzatziki so I didn't have to make that from scratch.  Man I love Costco!  Anyways this pizza is what was for dinner tonight, italics are my modifications. 

California Pizza Kitchen's Greek Pizza

Ingredients

• 1 pkg whole wheat pizza crust boboli
• 1 medium cucumber
• 2 medium tomatoes 
• 2 small cans sliced black olives (for authentic Greek I would typically use kalamata olives but my kids can't handle those and they love black olives so I stuck with black, which I like too!)
• This was my addition but I took 6 large artichoke hearts and chopped them coarsely and threw them in the salad 
• 1/4 cup feta cheese crumbles
• 1 tsp dried oregano
• 3 tbsp lemon juice 
• 2 chicken breasts, seasoned, grilled and chopped (they recommend buying Greek seasoning however they only had one on the shelf at the store and it was of course full of MSG so I used italian seasoning -- yea Mrs Dash! -- and added a little extra oregano and garlic and of course some salt and pepper) 
• 2 cup finely shredded mozzarella
• 3/4 cup tzatziki sauce (I highly recommend trying to find prepared, then I just added a little feta to mine and mint leaves)
• 2 tsp Italian flat leaf parsley
• 1/2 cup chopped scallions
• 1 tsp red wine vinegar
• 1/2 tsp sugar
• 1/4 tsp minced garlic
• 1 Tbsp olive oil
• pinch each of salt, pepper and oregano

Directions

Preheat Oven to 450*.

Greek Salad Topping: Mix together Lemon Juice, Oregano, Vinegar, Sugar, Garlic, Salt, Pepper and Oil. Dice Cucumber, Artichokes, Green Onion and Tomatoes and Toss in Lemon Juice Mixture along with Feta and Olives.

Add  mozzarella cheese and cooked chicken to crust and bake 8-10 minutes. Remove from oven and cut into 8 pieces.

Top pizza with greek salad topping. Drizzle with 1/2 Tzatziki Sauce and sprinkle parsley over pizza.  Serve with the rest of the sauce on the side.

For 8 pieces they are 6 pts each (although I ended up with a little of the salad mixture left over - nice little side salad tomorrow night!) so I say have a couple pieces with all those veges and that greek yogurt in the sauce and the grilled chicken - yummy and nutritious!

The last P is parfait and I want to share a yummy little treat that I learned from the hungry girl, it makes a delicious treat for an afternoon snack or for breakfast of if you are having an early morning Princess Party to celebrate the royal wedding as shown here:

(Don't judge me, it was 8 am and I was being festive for my girls!)

Anyways I learned this little treasure watching Hungry Girls show and it sounded too good and I have tried it several times mixing and matching the yogurts and fresh fruits as I see fit.  It is named after a very popular sandwich and I thought it would be both pretty and yummy (plus when you have little Princesses in the house the word Parfait just sounds exciting, I know Fancy Nancy would approve!) Here it is...

The PB&J Parfait

Ingredients:

One 6-oz. container fat-free strawberry yogurt (like the kind by Yoplait Light)

1/2 cup chopped strawberries (about 3 large strawberries)

1/4 cup peanut butter cereal with 3g fat or less per serving (like Cap'n Crunch's Peanut

Butter Crunch)

1 tsp. peanut butter chips, chopped up so you get tiny bits in every bite!

Optional: additional strawberries

Spoon half of the yogurt into a parfait glass (or any glass).

Top with half of the strawberries, followed by half of the cereal and half of the chips.

Continue layering with remaining yogurt, strawberries, cereal, and chips. Serve with

additional strawberries (or not; your call). Dig in!

MAKES 1 SERVING

HG FYI! Find the peanut butter chips in the baking aisle of the market.

(I have tried several fruit mixtures like I said but my favorite so far is the one in my picture with fresh raspberries and raspberry yogurt but I guess maybe that's because I like raspberry jelly on my PB&J's best! The kids dig for the Captain Crunch cereal and the PB chips!)

This super yummy satisfying treat - 5 pts, dig in!

So those are my three P's for the day! Today was also a beautiful sunny day which adds to the list words like Pleasant and Perfect! I hope yours was too.  Promising to cook more this week and hoping to bring you some more exercises too! See you soon!