Tasty Dinners

So today I got up and slugged through my workout. I really wanted to quit half way through it, but I just stopped watching the time and tried to make it through. I kept hoping to get my "second wind" and and it just never happened!

I didnt have a chance to take more pictures, but I do have 6 for the review tomorrow and thats what matters because it's one more than I need.

I really just had time to wake up, workout and then go to work. It was a good 5 hours, I got a lot done! I printed pictures, read and took notes on a History of Photo chapter and I chatted and looked up recipes on Pinterest. I freaking love Pinterest. I find the best recipes. I'm on a soup kick and I'm always looking for a healthy soup. One of my grad friends works on Sunday and so we just talked and chatted while we sat there! It was a good time.

I follow a couple of people on Facebook who are fitness folks. I follow Chalene Johnson, who is the creator of Turbo Fire and I follow her sister too. And her sister Jenelle Summers always talks about eating turkey burgers and reduced fat feta and using them in all kinds of things like salads and stuff. I also saw one of the bloggers I follow and SHE does a lot of cooking with whole wheat english muffins with caramelized onions and eggs for a sandwich. I was going to cook the turkey burgers anyway so I had one with the onions reduced fat feta on an english muffin, and it was GOOOOOD! So darn good!

I also found a recipe for Roasted Cauliflower and Aged White Cheddar soup. It was amazing as well. It was 5 servings and I put the calories in on My Fitness Pal and its under 300 calories for each serving. I'll post the recipe at the end of the post! I totally want to share this one. It was beyond good.

I didnt get off until 7, and unfortunately that meant that I didnt get to eat until around 9. I hate eating late, my stomach was gurggling so much while I was cooking. Finally I got to eat the turkey burger with onions.

I decided that its easier for me to cook what I want to eat in advance of my week. I dont like to cook pre planned meals that are already put together because I get so sick of the same thing all the time. I have realized now that its much easier for me to buy enough for two smaller meals during the week that way I can have either one or the other for lunch or dinner. Usually one is something that is easy to throw together. So this week I have the english muffins, and the turkey burgers which I can eat more than one way, I can have it with eggs instead or I can put the turkey in a salad. I also really like to have soup with some kind of steamed veggie. I got a bunch of carrots, but I didnt have time to steam them. I think I'm in love with steamed carrots now. But I can have that another day/night. The best part of all of this, is that I dont get sick of the same thing all the time, and I get to try new things.

I have decided that I love to cook, and I love to try new recipes. I dont think that I ever really admitted it to myself, but there it is! I mean cooking is like making art that you can eat!

I did end up eating a bowl of the soup, even though it got done way later than the turkey. And to top off my day I had six little christmas cookies, all 6 are only 160 calories. They were on sale at the store for a bag for 1.50, so I got two bags. Those will last me more than just this week. I love my little treat at the end of the day. I seem to get so excited for it. Its way better than binging on something that I know I really want. I think it helps with cravings as well.

My goal for this week is to try to start back on the shakeology. I really love my oatmeal in the morning, but I have two whole bags of shakeology that I need to go through, and I really like that the stuff is so good for me. So I got some almond milk and bananas so I can have a shake tomorrow.

Speaking of tomorrow... I have my first 55 minute workout... I'm almost dreading it. But I am not going to think of it like that. I CAN make it through the workout!

My yummy treats!

Here is my journal for today! I am very happy I have kept this up for 4 days. Usually I cant keep a food journal for more than a day. I just take it everywhere with me.

Here is the recipe!

This is my picture! And I promise its as good as it looks!

I didnt have a stick blender so I just used the regular blender.

Roasted Cauliflower and Aged White Cheddar Soup from Closet Cooking A creamy white cheddar cauliflower soup with a hint of thyme. Servings: 5 servings Prep Time: 10 minutes Cook Time: 50 minutes Total Time: 60 minutes Ingredients 1 small head cauliflower, cut into florets 2 tablespoons oil salt and pepper to taste 1 tablespoon oil 1 medium onion, diced 2 cloves garlic, chopped 1 teaspoon thyme, chopped 3 cups vegetable broth 1 1/2 cups aged white cheddar, shredded 1 cup milk or cream salt and pepper to taste Directions Toss the cauliflower florets in the oil along with the salt and pepper and arrange them in a single layer on a large baking sheet. Roast the cauliflower in a preheated 400F oven until lightly golden brown, about 20-30 minutes. Heat the oil in a large sauce pan over medium heat. Add the onion and saute until tender, about 5-7 minutes. Add the garlic and thyme and saute until fragrant, about a minute. Add the broth and cauliflower, bring to a boil, reduce the heat and simmer, covered, for 20 minutes. Puree the soup until it reaches your desired consistency with a stick blender. Mix in the cheese, let it melt and season with salt and pepper. Mix in the milk and remove from heat

Mini Lasagna Cups + Good News!

I FINALLY lost 30 pounds!!!! I'm stoked about this! I can't believe it. I've done Turbo Fire and Shakeology for three months and I've lost 30 pounds. Tomorrow I'll post some pictures! I told Corey today that if I lose 10 pounds a month, by December I can have lost 90 pounds! But I'm not going to get ahead of myself here! Sometimes it's just good to take it week by week and month by month. Sometimes I can't even look months ahead because sometimes its all I can do to get through a day!

I realized just now that I am out of the 250s. That is totally exciting. And I can't wait to be even less. In the past three months I've had great weeks and not so great weeks (you can go back and read about them! Ha!) and I'm really impressed that I've been blogging that long! Usually I crap out about a month into it.

Besides the exciting 30 pounds, I didn't do anything really exciting to day. Although I have an AMAZING dinner for you! But first calorie breakdown for today:

Breakfast: 1 cup oatmeal, 1/2 cup strawberries, 1/2 cup blueberries

Snack: 1 nectarine, 10 almonds

Lunch: 3 Buffalo Chicken Egg Rolls, 3/4 cup roasted broccoli, 1/2 cup carrots, 10 cherries

Snack: 1 egg, 1/4 cup spinach, 1/2 ounce pepper jack cheese, 1/2 piece of flat bread, 5 cherry tomatoes, 1/2 cup carrots

Dinner: 3 Lasagna Cups, 1 cup of salad mix with 1/2 an apple, 1 tsp vinegar, 1/2 tsp olive oil

Snack: Shakeology, 1 cup almond milk, 1 tbsp almond butter, 1 banana

Thats it! Total: 1967 calories

Workout: 20 minute 5k training, HITT 15 (today was my day off too!)

Water: 4-5 liters

On to my recipe!!

I got the recipe off of Pinterest and I don't remember where, but whoever made this... they are so good!

Mini Lasagna Cups:

Makes 18

Ingredients:

• 1 pound raw ground turkey
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp pepper
• 1 onion, chopped
• 1-2 portobello mushrooms (mine was HUGE so I only used one), chopped
• 14.5 oz can of crushed tomatoes, or tomato sauce (I used diced and it was great)
• 3 cloves of garlic, minced
• 3 tsp dired oregano, divided
• 2 bay leaves
• 1/2 tsp dried basil
• 15 oz of part skim (or low fat) ricotta cheese
• 24 small square wanton wrappers
• 1 cup of shredded mozzarella cheese

 Directions:

Preheat oven to 375. Heat a large skillet over medium heat. Add the turkey, onions, mushrooms, garlic, salt and pepper. Crumble the meat and sauté the mixture for about 10 minutes, or until turkey is cooked through.

Add the crushed (diced or sauce) tomatoes and 2 tsp of oregano and the bay leaves. Bring the mixture up to a gentle boil, then reduce heat to low and simmer for 10 minutes. Remove from heat and set aside.

Simmer for 10 minutes

In a large bowl, combine the ricotta, pinch of salt and pepper, leftover oregano, and the basil. Stir to mix well. Set aside.

Coat a 12-cup and 6 cup muffin tin with nonstick cooking spray. Place 2 wonton wrappers in the bottom of the 18 cups. I found that if you put them in diamond shaped, they tend to take up more space and overlap better, press the wrappers into the muffin pan.

Take the ricotta mixture and place it on the bottom of the muffin cups, dividing it up between the 18 cups. Then using the turkey tomato sauce, spoon it over the ricotta mixture. Sprinkle the top with the mozzarella.

Take the ricotta mixture and place it on bottom 

Then the Tomato Mixture

Lastly the Cheese

Bake for 10 minutes, or until the cheese has melted. Let them cool and serve them!

This is how hard the "kitchen crew" works

 These are so good! And, while I don't have kids, would be really fun for kids to eat! They are super easy and very tasty. If you have picky eaters, and they don't like turkey, I promise they would never know it wasn't beef. Honestly when I pulled them out of the oven, it looked just like beef.

I served mine with a salad made of baby spinach, carrots, apples, vinegar, lemon and olive oil.


 Calories: 158 for each cup! Not bad!

If you want to know all the nutrition info just let me know. I have it, just didn't write it all down!

I'm going to leave you with a picture of the "baby" sleeping.

Axel with a full belly! I want a giant pillow like this!

 

Weekends Hurt

I meant to post before today, but you know weekends are hard to find time to post. Why is it harder to find time when I have more of it?

So today I would like to tell you about my Weekend Problems, yes it deserves to be capitalized like that. 

I have always had the problem of sticking to my gumption during weekends, because I'm home all day and I have the chance to eat anything I want. The thing that sabotages me the most is all this food at my house. On weekdays I plan everything that passes my lips. I bring enough food to work to last me through my meals. But on the weekends I have the hardest time.

Maybe I need to start planning meals on the weekends too. My biggest weakness is going to the movies and wanting popcorn. Gad, I love popcorn. I love it with those flavors that you can find at some movie theaters. I especially love it with butter, but I've been saying no to that for a while now. 

And you would think that I have two perfect days to workout that I would utilize them, well I don't. I used to love to sleep in, but one of the side effects of getting up at 6 am on weekdays is that I can't sleep in. New sleeping in = 8:45. Old sleeping in = 12:00. Oh well, thats probably a good thing anyway.

While I may not have planned and eaten the meals I wanted to this weekend I did work out. I did Zumba! Which is really fun if you enjoy dancing, which I do! I took a pic of myself afterwards, your just going to have a headshot because I don't have a full length mirror, which is probably something I need to get so I can take better pictures of my body as I go. 

I also didn't post this weekend because I've been playing with my new iPhone 4s! So exciting to finally have one of these things. 

Yesterday my brother's came over and we cleaned the rest of my pottery studio. SOOOO excited to finally have that done. I'm going to go out there right now so I can take a picture to post here. I wish I had a before and after pic of this place, which is the shed in our backyard. But honestly, you don't want to see what it looked like. And we spent HOURS cleaning and chunking all of the shit in it. 

Before my parents divorced my dad tried to do himself in, with a tiller and the shed and some carbon monoxide poisoning. It didn't work, he chickened out before it did him in, but when he left my mom didn't want to touch the place because it had all of his stuff in it. 

When I wanted to start throwing pots, we needed a place to do it, and the most likely was the shed, so we cleaned out 13 years of dirt, dust, small animal poop and all kinds of crazy shit. And now I have my studio. I still need a wedging table, but that's another project for another weekend. 

This is from my iPhone! I love all my photo apps! This is a pic of my wheel. Its not on the bricks yet because we had to move it so that we could clean the other side of the room.

Same picture no app though and you can see more of the room. Those boxes on the right are all of my clay. Last weekend we went and bought 500 pounds. You would think that it's a lot, but its not that much. 

This is the back wall with some of my pottery and shelving. 

Needless to say I'm super excited about this! The funny thing is that it's colder in the room for some reason. It's 52 outside and like 42 inside. Weird. Turned the heater on so I can go work later. 

Tomorrow is weigh in day. I'm gonna take a pic of myself. So I can show some progress as the weeks go by! I'm hoping for another 3 pounds!