93 Days (Jennie)

Back on track today!

Here's today's rundown:

Breakfast
Spinach protein smoothie (spinach, vanilla protein powder, blueberries, unsweetened almond milk)

AM Snack
Banana and 4 slices turkey bacon and coffee

Lunch
Small caesar salad and tomato soup

PM Snack
Granola bar and a small handful of almonds

Dinner
Dutch Baby- an old childhood favorite that my dad used to make for us. Hubby plays soccer on Thursdays, so the kiddos and I have a Thursday night "brinner" (breakfast for dinner) tradition. I did make a few adjustments to the recipe to make it a bit healthier.

Dutch Baby
 adapted from Alton Brown's original recipe here

1.5 c flour
1.5 c unsweetened almond milk
8 T unsalted butter, melted and divided
6 eggs
1.5 t salt
1/2 c sugar

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Add 5 T of butter to cast iron skillet, pre-heat in oven 10 minutes while assembling other ingredients. Combine the remaining 3 T butter, flour, almond milk, eggs, salt and sugar in a blender. Process for 30 seconds. Pour carefully into the preheated skillet. Bake on the middle rack of the oven for 30 to 35 minutes or until the edges are puffed and brown.

What I love about Dutch Baby is that it's delicious with just fresh lemon juice or other fruit, no need for syrup. Quick to prepare and feeds a family of 4 easily. Each serving is 550 calories. Not the lightest of dinners, and I'm still working on alternatives (note, do NOT sub coconut flour- I failed miserably on this attempt). :)

Total calories in today: 1915
This morning's workout: Asylum Strength. On track to burn 2300 by midnight.

98 Days (Jennie)

Hooray for Saturdays! I actually had a pretty productive day today. Attended to my horribly overgrown yard, filled the green waste bin with grass clippings, pulled some weeds and still managed to get the workout in this morning (hooray!). We had a busy day with a birthday party later in the afternoon, so it was a bit of a challenge to get it all done, but mission accomplished thankfully!

I love making breakfast for the family on the weekends, it's nice to sit down and enjoy a meal together as opposed to the normal craziness of the week. This morning I made Baked Oatmeal, which I found on Annie's Eats blog here. I love her site, she has many amazing looking dishes and, as a fellow mom of young kiddos, keeps me inspired to keep cooking fresh wonderful food. I do make a few minor modifications to her original recipe, basically eliminating the pecans (kiddos don't like them), sub unsweetened almond milk for the regular milk and today I made it with half peaches and half blueberries. It's a very versatile dish, I always use the bananas as the base, but blueberries, peaches and and raspberries have all done well as the second fruit. Definitely use ripe bananas though, the only time it hasn't been so great is when my bananas were still a bit too green, it made the dish taste very starchy.

Oatmeal awesomeness!

Here's the rundown for the day.

Breakfast:
Baked Oatmeal

Lunch:
Plain greek yogurt with honey and grapes (I was in a rush to get cleaned up from yard work, get to a party and finish a pie... yikes!)

Snack (on the go on the way to the party):
String cheese and granola bar

Dinner (at the birthday party):
6" roast beef sub, watermelon, strawberries and carrots/snap peas from a veggie tray

I did stop for an iced raspberry latte on the way home. Not exactly the greatest, but I was tired and had an hour drive ahead, so I justified it. :)  I'm a little light on the calories today, but didn't want to overdo earlier in the day since I wasn't sure what we would be having for dinner at the birthday party. Total calories in: 1600

Workout for the day was Aslyum Back to Core. Not too intense of a workout thankfully since I followed it up with close to 3 hours of yardwork. 2500 calories burned so far according to my Fitbit with an hour left to go in the day still.

Tomorrow the family and I are heading up to visit my Dad for a belated Father's Day BBQ. So maybe all those saved calories from today will come in handy.

Have a fantastic weekend!

Chinese Chicken Salad (Mindy)

One of my favorite meals my Mom made growing up was her Chinese chicken salad!  Amazing sesame dressing, check!  Cruchy ramen noodles on top, check!  Lots of sesame seeds, check!

So I thought I'd try to make a lighter version... not that my Mom's version was not healthy, I just wanted to create a version with less oil and sans the ramen noodles.  Ramen is after all basically just fried white flour and if you use the flavor pack talk about sodium overkill!!  I

Now I will freely admit that this is not half as good as my Mom's salad, but it's pretty yummy and I will be adding it to my meal rotation for sure!

Chinese Chicken Salad

Servings: 4

Ingredients:

- 1 pack of Trader Joes Broccoli Slaw (substitute cabbage if you like, equivalent to 4 cups)

- 1 red bell pepper

- 1 lb chicken breast

Dressing Ingredients:

(Dressing adapted from this blog)

- 1 1/2 tablespoons grapeseed oil

- 6 tablespoons rice vinegar (I used unseasoned, but I'm sure the regular would be ok too)

- 1-2 teaspoons sesame oil

- 1 1/2 teaspoons sugar

- 2 teaspoons soy sauce

- 1-2 Tablespoons sesame seeds (I used 2T which I'm glad I did because those little buggers stuck to my dressing container so I probably only got about 1 T out of there)

- 1/2 teaspoon ground pepper

- 1/8 teaspoon salt

- A few squirts of Sriracha sauce (add more if you want it to have more of a kick)

Directions:

1. Mix all of the dressing ingredients together and set aside.

2. Whatever your choice is of chicken preparation.  I boiled the chicken breasts for 20 minutes then let them cool in the refrigerator.  Once they are cool enough go ahead and shred the chicken breast.

3. Slice the bell pepper into small strips and stick it in the bowl with the broccoli slaw

4. Pour the dressing over the slaw mixture and mix well.

5. Add the chicken to the slaw mixture and mix again

6. Enjoy and make sure to throw a piece of bell pepper or chicken to the begging pup at your feet

And the finished plate before I dig in..........

Nutrition Facts

Serving Size 239 g

Amount Per Serving

Calories  298 Calories from Fat  110

% Daily Value*

Total Fat  12.2g 19%

Saturated Fat  1.9g 10%

Cholesterol  87mg 29%

Sodium  414mg 17%

Total Carbohydrates  10.3g 3%

Dietary Fiber  2.9g 12%

Sugars  4.6g

Protein  36.3g

Vitamin A 11% • Vitamin C 131% Calcium 10% • Iron 13%

Nutrition Grade B+

* Based on a 2000 calorie diet

Low Calorie Banana Bread Mmmmmm (Mindy)

Yesterday morning I was craving a banana but when I went to grab one out of the fruit bowl they were all staring at me all overly brown and taunting me.   At first I felt defeated, but then I thought hey banana bread!  So I put google to work and tried to find a lower calorie version to make and ended up finding one that was delicious and will definitely be made over and over again!

Banana Bread
Recipe Care of A Hasty Life.com

(Picture taken this morning... see how it looks like only about half a loaf is left... well there is only half left because J and I could not stop munching on it last night it was that good!)

Serving size: 10 pieces

Ingredients:
- 1/4 cup sugar
- 2T butter, softened
- 1 large egg, beaten
- 1/4 cup unsweetened applesauce
- 1 cup ripe bananas, mashed (about 3 small)
- 3/4 cup all-purpose flour
- 1/2 cup whole wheat flour
- 1/2 tsp baking soda
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 1/4 cup chopped walnuts (this was not in the original recipe but I had to add it because what is banana bread without the nuts!)

Preparation:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees
2. In a large mixing bowl, combine softened butter and sugar with a mixer on medium speed for 2-3 minutes.  Add the egg and applesauce and beat another 1-2 minutes.  Fold in the bananas with a spoon or spatula.
3. In a small bowl mix together the flours, baking soda and salt
4. Gently mix in with a spoon or spatula the  flour mixture 1/2 cup at a time and only mix until just combined, do not over mix.  Fold in the chopped walnuts.
5. Coat a loaf pan with non stick cooking spray and pour the batter into the loaf pan.
6.  Bake at 350 degrees for 50-60 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.
7. Allow the bread to cool in the pan for 5 minutes then let it cool on a wire rack

Nutrition includes the walnuts that I added

Nutrition Facts

Serving Size 50 g

Amount Per Serving

Calories 119 Calories from Fat 23

% Daily Value*

Total Fat 2.5g 4%

Cholesterol 19mg 6%

Sodium 129mg 5%

Total Carbohydrates 21.4g 7%

Dietary Fiber 1.1g 4%

Sugars 7.6g

Protein 3.2g

Vitamin A 1% • Vitamin C 2% Calcium 1% • Iron 5%

Nutrition Grade A-

* Based on a 2000 calorie diet

Real Housewives Breakfast (Mindy)

So my first experience with Real Housewives was New York and my favorite was Betheny, although I never quite understood why she was in the cast since she was single and was without any kids... regardless I loved her and I love her Blog and the recipes I have tried on it.  So for breakfast this morning it was the Faux Pancake and yumminess ensued!

Faux Pancakes

(serves 1)

Ingredients:

1 Egg

2 Egg Whites

1/4tsp Vanilla extract (she also recommends strawberry, and I think almond may be good too)

1 tsp sugar

Directions:

1. Mix the egg whites, egg, sugar and extract in a bowl until combined

2. Sprain a pan with cooking spray and heat on medium-high heat.

3. Pour the egg mixture into the pan and once it is cooked on one side flip it over

4. Top it with whatever you want, fresh fruit a little bit of syrup or eat it plain!

As you can see I topped mine with a microwaved apple.  You take one apple, I prefer it peeled for this, and cut it thinly, I used my mandolin.  Top it with cinnamon and microwave it in a bowl for about 2 minutes, stopping every 30 seconds to check it and stir it.  

(Nutritional Facts does not include the apple on top only the pancake)

Nutrition Facts

Serving Size 121 g

Amount Per Serving

Calories 122 Calories from Fat 46

% Daily Value*

Total Fat 5.1g 8%

Saturated Fat 1.6g 8%

Cholesterol 186mg 62%

Sodium 180mg 7%

Total Carbohydrates 5.2g 2%

Sugars 5.2g

Protein 13.5g

Vitamin A 5% • Vitamin C 0% Calcium 3% • Iron 5%

* Based on a 2000 calorie diet

Saturday Eats (Mindy)

Oh how I love glorious Saturdays, sleeping in and relaxing all day long.... waking up to this sweet face and taking her for a nice long walk.

By the time I got around to eating it was already brunch time so an egg white scramble it was.  

Egg White Scramble

Most any veggies will probably due but our kitchen is running low so bell peppers and tomatoes it was.  I cooked the red pepper first in a little bit of olive oil until it was nice and soft.  Added the tomatoes and cooked them for about a minute then added in 3 egg whites.  

Throw in a side of avocado, fruit and toast and it was an amazing meal.

I did not use enough olive oil so there was a little bit of sticking and burned eggs going on hence the nice brownish tint to the egg whites but it was still delicious!  Total calories: 326

Dinner was a salad beast with lettuce, tomatoes, cucumber, bell pepper, avocado, left over barbecued chicken breast and Annie's Light Goddess Dressing.  I also had a piece of toast with peanut butter on it as well because a day without peanut butter is no day at all in my book!  Total calories: 493

And tonight will end with a nice glass of red wine... and hopefully a slice of low fat/low calorie banana bead that is currently baking in the oven if it is any good!

Cheers!!