Day 71...

Day 71, cause we all know I can't post on a nice round number day.  I think 71 has a nice ring.  Isn't it strange that "good" things measure time in week, months and finally years?  Take a baby for instance, you go through the period of "he's 2 weeks old", followed by "today is 10 months", then it becomes "wow three years already" (yup that is where I am)!!  Yet when it is something hard/difficult it is measured in days past.  Not normally weeks or months, we like to see that GIANT "days" number.  I could have just as easily said 10 weeks, but that doesn't seem as much to me.  And 2.5 months certainly isn't a big enough number.  I will stick with days for now - 71.

So I finally broke down and posted a "stuck" rant about a week ago.  I hadn't moved for a week and I was a little annoyed - SORRY!  I honestly have to say I felt better almost as soon as I posted the rant.  I certainly felt better after I visited my doc for a flu shot and quarterly visit - sometimes I swear my doctor is a vampire; with the amount of blood she requires it's a good thing I have no problem with needles! ** I am going to go off on a tangent right now about my medical team.  They are AWESOME!  Through many crazy mixed up things they have supported me.  From my PCP to my liver doc they all rock!  I love the fact that I can talk to them without censoring myself and they do the same.  I don't get the "doctor's speak", I get the sarcastic or tell it like it is conversation that works best for me!  **

Anyway, after a visit to my doctor's office - which has the BEST SCALE EVER seeing it said I had lost 3.5 pounds more than mine did - I was feeling very good.  I ran the MFP program and my current journey by my doc and she gave me her thoughts.  She feels that it is obviously working for me and she is happy about that.  She did give me some "Amy Lectures" (read: sarcastic jabs) about a few days where I didn't eat enough calories.  Apparently muscle is a lot easier to break down than fat so those days I did more harm than good.  She rattled off the warning signs of not getting the right amounts of vitamins - the same ones we all know.  And then she gave me a piece of advice that astounded me.  Have a splurge day.  I must have made her say it about 12 times.  (Which she did in the typical sarcastic fashion that is our relationship.)  She said that if I find I am not loosing, and my exercise/food consumption has been steady/the same then you need to shake things up.  She said that a splurge day is what is needed.  Your body becomes complacent and slows your metabolism to the calorie count you are eating.  She said you want to remind it to work faster.  Now a splurge day doesn't mean to go out and eat an entire cake by yourself, but perhaps have that piece you have been wanting.  She also suggested NOT establishing an exercise routine.  Again, your body anticipates the exercise, shake it up.  Don't do the same thing every day at the same time.  Finally she informed me that I needed to be sure to eat my calories.  If, for example, I have 1300 calories for the day - eat 1300 calories.  Eating your calories helps you loose weight faster and better. All in all she was happy with my progress - YAY seal of approval from the doc! I took her advice to heart - seeing I had been stuck for almost a week - and decided to treat myself to that hunk of bread that had been calling my name.  For the next few days I ate at my calorie count, where as previously I have been aiming to come in 100-200 below the goal.  POOF - within a couple of days I started losing again.  Within a week of that conversation, following her added guidelines, I have lost 3.1 pounds.  My doctor is a genius!

In other journey news, I have recently cracked out the Wii Fit.  I had used it pretty regularly prior to Linc being born, but had completely ignored my Mii since his birth.  After dealing with the boards little jabs of not seeing me for a LONG time, I realized I enjoy using it.  I set up a yoga/strength routine that I do, if not daily than at least every other.  The days I give the routine the night off, I spend an caloric equivalent amount of time hula hooping, skateboarding or having snowball fights.

And now for the numbers.  71 days, as we discussed earlier, and 32.4 pounds lost.  (Not that I am really missing them, but you know what I mean.)  That is .456 pounds lost per day.  3.24 pounds lost per week.  And finally 12.96 pounds lost per month.  I am happy with that.  I was stuck and I complained.  I did something about it and now I am back on my journey.  All in all I am happy.  This is working and I can't wait to see what the next months bring!

Someone be sure to remind me about my doc's advice the next time I whine about being stuck!!  (Sorry about the incredible length of this post - not having power has left me chatty!)

Lemony Crinkle Cookies

I had such high hopes for these cookies.  I am posting this recipe as is because Brian said they were good.  In my opinion they lack lemon.  I will need to double the lemon juice and adjust the flour the next time I make these.  Now I am not normally a fan of crinkle cookies cause, well, they make a HUGE mess!  My mother (or an aunt) always seems to make chocolate crinkle cookies for our christmas cookie swap, more power to them.  Eight dozen crinkle cookies, I can only imagine the chocolate and powdered sugar mess that I would make.  Anyway, as I told you all with the lemon bars, I love lemon so I was willing to deal with a crinkle cookie if it meant wonderful lemony goodness.  To me these taste more like a sugar crinkle cookie with a SLIGHT lemon undertone.  I will have to jazz them up a bit.

Lemony Crinkle Cookies

• 1 c Butter or Margarine, softened
• 2 c Sugar
• 1 t Vanilla
• 2 Egg
• 2 t Lemon Zest
• 2 T Lemon Juice
• 1/2 t Baking Powder
• 1/4 t Baking Soda
• 3 c Flour
• Confectioner's Sugar for dusting

1. Preheat your oven to 350 F and lightly grease your cookie sheets.
2. Beat together the sugar and butter until light and fluffy.  
3. Add in the eggs, vanilla, lemon zest and lemon juice.  Mix until well blended and slightly fluffy again.
4. Slowly add the remaining ingredients.  Dough will be sticky.  
5. Roll heaping teaspoons of the dough into the confectioners sugar to coat and drop them on the greased cookie sheets.  
6. Bake the cookies for about 10 minutes, or until the bottoms are barely brown and the cookies have lost their sheen.  
7. Allow the cookies to cool on the baking sheet for at least 2 minutes before moving to a cooling rack.  This is important cause if you try to move them too soon they will crumble.
8. ENJOY!

The recipe makes about 6 dozen cookies (on the smaller size).  They are good, they just seem to lack the lemon kick I was looking for.  I haven't given up on them yet.

The cookies come in around 55-60 calories/ cookie.  Not bad all things considered.  If you like lemon, not strong lemon but lemon, then give them a try.

Brown Sugar Glazed Apple Cake

This weekend was a weekend of Halloween parties.  Now I am sure most people think candy and pumpkins when it comes to Halloween, I think apples.  It is probably cause Halloween means fall and fall means fresh delicious apples, at least in my crazy head.  That being said, I set out to make a new apple recipe for one of the parties.  *I do so like it when I get to combine things in a satisfactory way*  I came across a brown sugar glazed cake in one of my many cook books and thought - PERFECT! (The recipe was from a version of Southern Cakes if you are interested.)  Make it an apple cake and we are in business!  I must say I am pretty pleased with the results!  The cake was moist and the brown sugar glaze gave it just the perfect amount of "caramel" flavoring without actually being caramel (you know for people like myself that are not a fan of caramel).

Brown Sugar Glazed Apple Cake

• 1 1/2 c Flour
• 1 c Sugar
• 1/2 t Baking Soda
• 1/2 t Cinnamon
• 2 Eggs
• 1/4 c Oil
• 1/4 c Applesauce
• 1 t Vanilla
• 1 1/2 c Apples, peeled and chopped

• 1/2 c Brown Sugar
• 3 T Butter or Margarine
• 1 T Whole Milk
• 1/2 t Vanilla

1. Preheat the oven to 350 F and grease an 8 x 8 pan (or use a round pie dish - that it what I normally use).
2. Combine the flour, sugar, soda, cinnamon, eggs, oil, applesauce, 1 t of vanilla and apples in your mixer and blend well.
3. Pour mixture into your prepared pan and bake for 35- 40 minutes or until a tester inserted in the center comes out clean.
4. Once the cake is out of the oven, place the brown sugar, butter, whole milk, and 1/2 t of vanilla in a sauce pan and bring to a slow boil.  Cook the miture for 3-5 minutes (you will notice it thickens).  Remove from heat and let sit until it is no longer bubbling.  Spoon the brown sugar mixture over the still warm cake.  
5. Set the cake aside until the brown sugar mixture cools. 
6. ENJOY!

I am VERY sorry for not having any pictures.  It completely escaped my mind to snap a few before the party.  I am sure I will be making this again in the near future so I will update with some pictures at that time.

Calorie-wise it comes in as expected.  I played around a little with the recipe (read: oil/applesauce and eggs) but it is still an apple cake - which never creates a 100 calorie snack!  The cake is easily cut into 16 pieces no matter what baking pan you use and therefore I base the calorie count on 16 pieces.  One piece of the cake will run you about 175-180 calories - not great but not horrible either and completely yummy!

PB&J Muffins

It's muffin day here at the ranch.  With the threat of Sandy looming over our afternoon I decided to get some quick cooking in this morning.  I am a big fan of peanut butter and jelly!  Skippy or JIF peanut butter and Welch's "Natural Concord Grape Spread" - yum!  I make PB&J cookies but I have never tried muffins, well today is the day.  I adapted a recipe that had a LOT of oil, butter and eggs in it so I am hoping they come out ok - why so much butter and eggs when you have the oily/yummy goodness of peanut butter in your mix?

PB&J Muffins

• 2 c Flour
• 1T Baking Powder
• 1 c Milk
• 2 Eggs
• 2/3 c Sugar
• 1 c Peanut Butter (I use creamy but use what you have)
• 1/3 c Unsweetened Applesauce
• 1/2 c Jam or Jelly

1. Preheat your oven to 375 F and grease your muffin tin.
2. Mix together the applesauce, sugar, eggs and peanut butter.  Add in the powder and mix well.
3. Alternate one cup of flour with the cup of milk and finally the last cup of flour.  Mix well until there are no lumps.
4. Spoon the mixture into your muffin tins until they are about half full.  Top each muffin with 2 teaspoons of jam/jelly.  Divide the remaining batter between the the muffins to "close off" the jam/jelly.
5. Bake for about 20 minutes.  
6. ALLOW TO COOL BEFORE EATING.  The muffin might taste wonderful right out of the oven but the jam/jelly inside the muffin is steaming hot and you do NOT want to burn your mouth/tongue on that - trust me!  
7. Enjoy!

The original recipe claims to have made 12 muffins - I did adapt the recipe and my first time making them I just made 12 muffins.  Twelve VERY LARGE muffins, which isn't a bad thing but not everyone likes a huge muffin!  I think the next time I make these I will shoot for 18-24 muffins instead.

These are NOT calorie friendly at all - but let's be honest what with peanut butter is?  If you only make 12 muffins they come in at around 400 calories a piece (which is still less than a REDUCED FAT blueberry muffin from Dunkin Donuts - so I guess perspective).  Obviously, if you make 24 muffins you are looking at a more doable 200 calories/muffin.

Seeing I am such a fan of PB&J, I am more than willing to spend the 200 (or even 400) calories on one of these beauties.  If you are the same, try them out.  Be sure to let me know what you think!

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies

In keeping with the spirit of fall, and the fact that this weekend we have multiple Halloween parties to attend, I have decided to make pumpkin and apple treats this weekend.  The original thought was pumpkin bars, but I didn't feel like cooking with cream cheese today - yes I know I am weird.  So I transfered my attention to cookies.  Now I have already made some wonderful pumpkin spice cookies but they were missing the one ingredient I DID want to work with  - chocolate.  And so, pumpkin chocolate chip cookies were created!

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies

• 1 c Butter or Margarine, softened
• 3 c Sugar
• 2 Eggs
• 2 c Pumpkin Purée
• 2 t Vanilla
• 2 t Cinnamon
• 1 t Nutmeg
• 1/2 t Cloves
• 4 1/4 c + 2T Flour *
• 2 t Baking Powder
• 2 T Baking Soda
• 1 c Chocolate Chips

1. Preheat your oven to 375 F.  Lightly grease your cookie sheets and set aside.
2. Cream together the butter, sugar, eggs, pumpkin, vanilla, cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves.
3. Add the powder and soda to the mix and blend well.
4. Slowly add in the flour 1 c at a time until all the flour is added and mixed well.
5. Finally add in your chocolate chips - I never actually measure chocolate chips, I just pour :-D.
6. Drop the batter by rounded spoonfuls onto your greased cookie sheet and bake for 10-12 minutes.
7. ENJOY

This recipe makes a LOT of cookies.  If you make them on the smaller side you could easily get 8 dozen.  I got just shy of 7 dozen and they were fairly large.  The calorie count obviously depends on how many cookies you make.  For my 80 cookies the calories came in at 79/cookie.  Not all that bad considering they are a COOKIE made with butter, sugar, flour and CHOCOLATE.  They are pretty good and I will be bringing them to the first of the Halloween parties this weekend.

This is a THIRD of the batch!

*I have starred this ingredient due to the "crazy" quantity.  The recipe that I adapted for this cookie required "cake flour".  I only buy all purpose flour (and the occasional graham).  The difference between pastry, bread, all purpose, etc flours is the amount of gluten present in the flour.  I have a conversion chart that I reference when something like this comes up and I have decided it might be a nice thing to share:

When the recipe calls for:	Substitute:
1 cup sifted cake flour	1 cup minus 2 tablespoons sifted all-purpose flour
1 cup pastry flour	1 cup minus 1 tablespoon all-purpose flour
1 cup self-rising flour	1 cup minus 1 tablespoon all-purpose flour plus 11/2teaspoons baking powder and 1/8 teaspoon salt
1 cup all-purpose flour	1 cup plus 1 tablespoon pastry flour

I hope that will help you all as much as it helps me - I just don't have room to keep all the different types of flour in my house!

As always if you give these cookies a try let me know your thoughts!!

Taco Pizza

Brian requested taco pizza for dinner.  I was all for it until I did the math for a homemade pizza dough taco pizza - 460+ calories for 2 slices?  Heck if I wanted that amount of calories used up I would have gone to Papa Gino's (my personal pizza guilty pleasure)!  That just wasn't going to work - I needed to find a way to reduce the calories.

Have I ever introduced you wonderful people to the amazing Top This! Pizza crusts?  They are wonderful!  I first found them at Dave's Marketplace, and have since discovered that our wonderful milk man will deliver them right to our door!  They are beautiful fire grilled pizza crusts that come in white and wheat.  (I have had both, yet in our house we prefer the white - plus it is less calories.)  The white pizza crust 1s 600 calories for the ENTIRE THING - compared to the 1000 calories for a homemade pizza dough I would say that is a significant reduction!  If you live in New England (or "Old New England" - read: Florida) check them out!  They are delicious and a wonderful alternative to a higher calorie pizza dough.

So I discovered a means to lower the calorie count and taco pizza was again feasible for dinner.  I would say it came out pretty good.  I only ended up having one piece, 1/8th of the pizza.  This was originally due to the fact that I wasted all my calories for the day on chocolate - it was one of those days.  After eating that once piece, and a salad, I am happy to say I was very full.  So I didn't actually miss out on anything!

Taco Pizza

• 1 Top This! Pizza Crust
• 1 c Refried Beans (I used fat free)
• 1/2 lb Ground Beef
• 2 T Taco Seasoning
• 1 c Corn (I used frozen)
• 1 Bell Pepper, diced
• 1/2 Onion, diced
• 1/4 c Black Olives, sliced
• ~10 Grape Tomatoes, chopped
• 1/3 c Mexican Cheese

Check out those layers!!  YUM

1. Brown the ground beef in a pan and season with the taco seasoning.  
2. Mix the corn into the ground beef and set aside to cool.
3. Preheat the oven to 425 F and place your pizza stone or baking sheet in the oven while preheating.
4. While the oven is preheating put the refried beans in a microwave safe bowl and microwave on high for 1-2 minutes.  When done spread the beans out in and even layer on the pizza crust.
5. Top the refried beans with the meat/corn mixture.  
6. Top the meat/corn mixture with the peppers, onions, olives, and tomatoes.
7. Finally sprinkle the cheese on top of everything.
8. Slide the prepared pizza onto the preheated pizza stone or baking sheet and bake for 10-15 minutes, or until cheese is melted and the crust has reached your personal crispiness.  
9. Remove from oven, cut into 8 slices and ENJOY!

Brian topped his pizza with salsa.  You can also add avocado slices, sour cream, or even lettuce.  The pizza is thick and messy, but let's be honest - all the best types of pizza are!

Sorry for the crappy pictures - I really need to start using an
actual camera instead of my phone for these posts!

Now for the calories:  For one slice of pizza (1/8th of the pizza) the calorie count comes to 180.  But let's be honest, who actually east ONE slice of pizza (unless you accompany it with a SUPER LARGE salad).  So for 1/4 of the pizza the calorie count is 360.  Simple math I know, but I wanted to put it out there so you could SEE that it came in a whole 100 calorie less than the homemade pizza dough.

Cheesy Veggie Soup

I am back on my soup kick.  I really don't understand this, I have never been a huge soup fan but I can't seem to get enough lately.

Today's challenge was creating a nice broccoli/cheese soup that isn't 300+ calories.  If you are looking for a straight broccoli and cheese soup, however, this one is not for you.  I have added in carrots, onions and celery to round out the soup (read: more substance for less calories).  Seeing I have only made this soup once I am going to post the recipe with the changes that I plan on making next time - don't be scared.  I ate it as is, I just have a few tweaks for future batches.  I also apologize in advance, I have a tendency to just pour my water without measuring.  Therefore you will notice I give you a range - I normally air on the high side of the range, but create to your personal tastes!

Cheesy Veggie Soup

• 1/2 Onion, chopped
• 2-3 Carrots, chopped
• 2 Celery Stalks, chopped
• 1/2 T Garlic, minced (originally I used 1T - I LOVE garlic and it was too much!)
• 4-5 c Water
• 4-5 Chicken Bouillon Cubes (you can use Veggie as well)
• 1 T Cornstarch
• 1/4-1/2 c Water
• 2/3 c Milk
• 5 c Broccoli, chopped (I originally used whole florets - they need to be chopped!)
• 2 c Cheddar Cheese, shredded
• 2 Potatoes, cubed (** I did NOT put potatoes in my original recipe, I plan on adding them in future ones.)

I used a hunk of our aged cheddar from Harman's.
If you are ever in Sugar Hill, NH you have to check them out!

1. In a large pot, sprayed with non-stick spray, sauté the onion, carrot, garlic and celery until onion is soft.
2. Add the water, bouillon cubes and cubed potatoes.  Bring to a boil.  Reduce heat and cook till potatoes are just shy of tender.
3. Create a slurry with the cornstarch and water.  Pour the slurry into the soup and bring to a rapid boil while stirring constantly.  Reduce heat to simmer until soup thickens.
4. Once the soup thickens add in the milk and chopped broccoli.  Heat until broccoli is warmed through.
5. Finally stir in the cheese until melted.  (Serve with a hunk of crusty bread or turn the crusty bread into bread bowls!  I had mine with a piece of crusty bread - perfect for dipping!)
6. ENJOY

The soup is REALLY easy to make and it creates a LOT.  My pot produced 13+ cups of soup (again remember that I don't actually measure).  I calculated the calories based upon 12 cups being made into 8 servings.  For a cup and a half serving the calories come in around 183/serving.  If you want to omit the potatoes the calories per serving come in at about 177.  I think it is pretty good - very flavorful!  it isn't as thick as, say, Panera's Broccoli Cheese but it is half the calories so I can ok with a thinner soup.  I will post an update the next time I make it so I can tell you how the changes turned out.  In the meantime, if you make it, let me know what you think!