Foggy and Frosty

We got our first frost of the season last night.  When I got up I could barely see much from our driveway!

It’s funny because our dog likes to sleep in.  He has never been a dog that is begging to be let out.  Maybe since he’s older?  He was sleeping at the foot of our bed.  I said “do you want a treat?”  No response.  “do you want to go outside?”  No response.  “Want to go for a walk?”  He bolts to the door as fast as he can!

We took a 20 minute walk this morning.  It was the perfect way to start the day!  Frosty fall leaves:

You can hardly even see the river in this picture!

Thanks to Tastespotting and Foodgawker for publishing my pumpkin pancakes!  I love it when my photos don’t get rejected for “poor food composition” “low light!” 

I still had batter in my refrigerator so I decided to repeat the breakfast today.  One thing I noticed was that since my batter was cold, they did not spread out as much as fresh made, and they were a bit more dense.  I think next time I’ll just cook the whole batch, otherwise let the batter come to room temperature.

These kept me full FOR HOURS!  I ate these around 9:00 a.m. and I didn’t eat lunch until almost 2!  Thank to Tony’s dinner last night for me, I had leftovers for lunch.  I had about 1.5 cup of stirfry with a gala apple on the side.

Then I got an afternoon visitor!  Hannah brought me a Pumpkin Spiced Latte from Starbucks!

Thanks Hannah!

Dinner tonight came from Saveur Magazine.  Yes, I know I subscribe to too many food magazines!  But I really liked this issue!  Since I used their recipe down to the letter, you’ll have to click on the link to get the recipe for Chicken Breasts Stuffed with Mozzarella Cheese, and Prosciutto!

Each chicken breast was stuffed with 3/4 ounce of prosciutto and 1 ounce of fresh mozzarella cheese.  In hindsight, I should have stuffed the cheese first, and then closed it with the prosciutto to keep the cheese in.  Still fricken good though!  First you pan fry (I used 1 tsp. vegetable oil and lots of Pam) skin side down on medium high heat for 5 minutes.

My sister just can’t do bone-in meat! It’s too bad because my store routinely sells it for $.79 cents a pound!  After the first flip, it goes into a 450 oven until the meat reaches 170 degrees – it took me about 18 minutes for these size breasts.  See the glorious cheese trying to escape??!!

My plate:  I ate half the chicken (no skin), 1/2 cup scalloped potatoes and sautéed zucchini.

I tried to make the grilled lemon like in the magazine – I ended up squeezing a bit of lemon juice on my chicken and I loved the added acidity to the chicken!

I have to brag now!  Hannah got her first semester report card!  4.027!  GREAT JOB HANNAH!

Stats for the Day:

• 1434 calories
• 53 fat
• 151 carbs
• 94 protein
• 17 fiber (need to kick that up!)
• 20 minute morning walk with the dog
• 40 minute walk at lunch

Those 120 squats I did yesterday??  I felt it today! 

Two more days until the weekend – see you tomorrow night!

Theme of the Day – Pumpkin and Happy Anniversary!

First I have to wish my parents-in-law a Happy Anniversary!  I got home too late to call them – married 53 years ago today!  Happy Anniversary Bonnie and Carl!

It’s going to be a quick post – I had to work late tonight, and it’s Biggest Loser!  When I saw these pumpkin pancakes, I knew they would be on the breakfast menu this week!  I made a couple changes though – I used Splenda brown sugar and fat free evaporated milk.  And I didn’t have any pumpkin pie spice so I subbed a combo of cinnamon and nutmeg.

Pumpkin Pancakes

• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1 cup whole wheat flour
• 1 tablespoons Splenda brown sugar
• 1 tablespoon baking powder
• 3/4 teaspooon cinnamon
• 3/4 teaspoon nutmeg
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 – 12 ounce can of fat free evaporated milk
• 1/2 cup pumpkin puree
• 1/4 cup water
• 1 large egg
• 2 tablespoons vegetable oil

Mix dry ingredients in one bowl.  Mix wet ingredients in another.  Mix until well combined.

Each pancake comes in at 116 calories, 4 fat, 16 carbs, 1.4 fiber and 3.9 protein.

One trick I’ve learned is to let the batter sit for 15 minutes to let the baking powder do its thing.  It results in REALLY fluffy pancakes!

Since these weren’t high in protein, I divided 1 tablespoon of no added sugar peanut butter on top of each pancake.  I added 1/4 cup of Smuckers sugar free pancake syrup.

Um, pretty sure its heaven on a plate!!!!!  See how fluffy they got!

The perfect bite with my classy plastic fork!

Lunch was more pumpkin – as in my Spicy Pumpkin Soup!  I actually think it was better the more it sat in the fridge!  Seriously, the combination of flavors is such an explosion of flavors from the sweet and heat combo.  YUM!  Since no one in my family will touch it with a ten foot pole, my friend Renee at work will be my guinea pig!   I had a giant salad on the side too – it took forever to eat!

When I called Tony to tell him I was coming home, he asked if he could make me something to eat.  I told him I would throw something together when I got home and not to worry about it.  But when I walked in the door, literally 15 minutes after I called him, I had shrimp stir-fry awaiting me!  It had the perfect amount of spice!

Luckily he made a lot, so lunch is taken care of tomorrow!   Thank you Tony!  I needed that and thanks for cleaning up the kitchen too!

I did get a chance to work out today, so while I haven’t figured out my exact calories for the day, I am going to consider it “intuitively” eating!

I did 40 minutes of my jog/sprint on the treadmill – my last sprint was 7 mph!!

And while I was at the copier today I did 120 squats!  60 squats were done while on my tippy toes!  Have you tried that before??  Go ahead, try a few, I’ll wait. . . hard isn’t it!

Alright, gotta scoot and watch BL!  See you tomorrow night!

Weigh-In Monday

I’ve decided to post my weigh-ins every Monday to give me motivation to not gain a ton of weight during the upcoming holiday season.  My goal is to be 155 by January 1.  I think that is completely possible!  Last week I weighed in at 166.  Today. . .

I love this scale! After you stand on it for a few seconds, it blinks to let you know its locked in the weight.  Then I can actually take a decent picture of the number!  So I am down –2.6 for the week. 

For breakfast this morning I had a honeycrisp apple that I nuked in the microwave.  I actually pushed the “fresh vegetable” setting and it was nice and tender.  I put 1 ounce of 50% reduced fat Cabot cheese on top and broiled the cheese, then sprinkled with 1/2 ounce of granola.  HOLY YUM!  Loved the sweet/salty combo of the apple and cheese, and I liked the added crunch of the granola!

Since i had a lot of chicken leftover from our chicken tostadas last night, I decided to make a chicken quesadilla.  My tortillas were low carb, only 50 calories each and a whopping 7 grams of fiber for each one!

I put 1 tablespoon of refried beans on each side, 3 ounces of chicken breast, 1 ounce of Cabot reduced fat cheese, then Pam fried it.  After it was cooked I added the lettuce and red pepper.  It was messy to eat but delicious!

Over the weekend I made low cal taco soup.  Wondering why it looks orange?  That’s because the peppers I put in the broth were too spicy, so I ended up adding 1/2 cup of fat free half and half to bring it down a notch.  So while it doesn’t look too appealing, it tasted good!

I have to show my snowman bowl I have at my desk.  It’s an all season bowl, and I always make sure the snowman in season is facing me – here is November . . . soon to be December!

I decided to try a pork chop recipe that called for a dijon mustard cream sauce.  It was kind of a flop.  While the flavor was there, the sauce never thickened properly and I overcooked the pork chops.  My rosemary new potatoes were delicious though!  it helps to start with fresh rosemary.

My plate:  I ate 1/2 of this pork chop – it was 6 ounces total.

And like most nights, I usually spill something either on me, the floor, or the counter!  I was staining straining the mustard sauce to a gravy boat, and didn’t even realize I had spilled while I was doing it!

After dinner I made pumpkin pancakes for my breakfast tomorrow!  Here’s a sneak peak – you’ll have to come back tomorrow for the recipe!

Stats for the Day:

• 1238 calories
• 43 fat
• 130 carbs
• 100 protein
• 31 fiber
• 10 minute AM walk with the dog
• 45 minute walk at lunch

Check out my friend Shelley!  She made it into Woman’s Day magazine for her weight loss blog!  You go girl!!

See you tomorrow!

Another beautiful day!

It’s so weird to see Christmas decorations in stores when it feels like the beginning of summer!  But, true to Chicago weather, I predict in three weeks we’ll have a measurable snow – that’s just how it works in the midwest!

While I had pumpkin pancakes on my brain, I decided for 1/2 bagel egg sammie with 50% reduced fat Cabot cheese, 1 egg, 1 piece of bacon and 1/2 a jalapeno bagel (which I found in the deep freeze – score!)

Hannah had to work today and Tony met Joe for the Bears game.  I was alone in my house!  This hardly ever happens, even with just three of us living here!  My first thought was to just veg in front of the t.v. and watch FoodTV.  But then I knew I had to straighten up the living room, dust, vacuum, laundry, etc.  I decided to give myself one hour of blog reading and FoodTV watching, and then I had to get going! 

By the time the chores were done, it was almost 1:30!  I wanted to take our dog on the trail today.  He gets so excited driving in the car!  Sadly, all the trails I normally take him to are closed due to deer shooting.  One weekend in the fall and one weekend in the spring the nature preserve thins out the deer population.  As we passed each trail Ed was whimpering louder and louder!   So I basically took him on a 10 minute car ride!  I did walk him around the neighborhood for 20 minutes – that made him content!

When I got back from the walk, I was HUNGRY!  I remembered I had leftover pizza dough, so whipped up a quick red pepper pizza.  I ate half which was 4 ounces of dough, 1/4 cup sauce, 1 ounce of mozzarella cheese.

And of course no Sunday could go by without some Bizness in the kitchen!  My friend at work is coming back from a long weekend in Paris – lucky girl!  I thought she might not have had a chance to go to the store, so I am bringing her and her husband my spicy chili.  I wondered what I could make to go with it, and cornbread seemed like a simple solution!

Easy Cornbread

• 2 cups corn meal mix
• 1 1/3 cup milk
• 1/4 cup vegetable oil
• 2 eggs

Heat the oven to 450.  Grease a 9×9 pan and put it in the oven.  Once the oven comes to temp, add the mixture to the sizzling pan.  Bake for 20 minutes.

Then I made stuffed shells for a dinner later this week.  I love coming home and just popping something in the oven!  I’ll post the recipe the day we eat it!

Chicken breasts were on sale for $1.29!  I decided to make chicken tostadas when I saw these in my grocery store:

They were really light and crispy!

I marinated the chicken in the juice of one lime, 1 tablespoon olive oil, 2 tablespoons taco seasoning and garlic.  I fired up the gas grill since I knew they wouldn’t take too long.  The only downside of grilling in the dark is you sometimes can’t tell if the meat is done!  Happily, they turned out perfect – nice and juicy!

My plate: 2 tostadas, 2 ounces of chicken, 2 tablespoons guacamole, 2 tablespoons refried beans, lettuce, taco sauce, banana peppers (added at the table!) and diced red pepper.  At the table I nibbled on about 1 more ounce of chicken and 3 tortilla chips!

Stats for the Day:

• 1272 calories (+ about 200 calories for licks and tastes while cooking!)
• 47 fat
• 144 carbs
• 74 protein
• 18 fiber
• 20 minute walk with dog
• chores! (yes, I am counting that as exercise!)

I had a great grocery shop weekend!  It feels so good to be prepared for the week!  Between two stores I spent $124.

Breakfast:

• pumpkin pancakes
• stuffed apple with cheddar and granola
• taco egg burritos
• herbed goat cheese potato and zucchini frittata
• Biz classic egg sammie on tiny whole wheat bagels

Lunch:

• pumpkin soup with romaine salad
• ham and spinach grilled cheese with veggies and hummus
• spaghetti squash chili
• taco soup with chicken cheese quesadilla
• veggie pizza on low carb wrap

Dinner:

• pork chops with scalloped potatoes
• chicken breasts stuffed with prosciutto and fresh mozzarella with garlic mashed potatos
• super stuffed shells with spinach salad
• teriyaki turkey tenderloin with steamed broccoli and brown rice
• party pizza Friday??!!   I think I may make a Mexican Pizza on Friday if Tony isn’t sick of pizza!

Check out Errign’s Giveaway – A Bead of Love Bracelet and a Bag of Goodies!

Hope everyone had a great weekend like me!   See you tomorrow night!

BSI Recipe – Maple Syrup!

This weeks hostess is Julie at Savvy Eats and she chose Maple Syrup as the Blogger Secret Ingredient!  I cheated slightly because since I am diabetic, I chose to use sugar free maple syrup – but if you decide to try this soup, I recommend using real maple syrup if you can!

Biz’s Spicy Pumpkin Bisque

• 4 cups chicken broth (I use chicken soup base)
• 3 cups pumpkin puree (not pumpkin pie mix)
• 1/2 tsp. cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
• 1/4 teaspoon allspice
• 2 tablespoons honey
• 2 tablespoons maple syrup
• 1 chipotle pepper in adobo sauce
• 1 cup fat free half and half

Heat chicken broth to almost boiling.  Add pumpkin through the chipotle pepper, reduce heat to low and simmer for 20 minutes.  Using a stick blender, blend until smooth.  Remove from heat and add fat free half and half and stir until incorporated.

Makes 8 one cup servings:  99 calories, 1 fat, 18.5 carbs, 2.6 fiber and 3.5 protein

I love this flavor combination!  It’s sweet and savory at the same time, and I love the extra kick the chipotle pepper gives the whole soup.  Although, I had my neighbor try it and he wasn’t too enthused!  But he’s never had pumpkin soup before, and I think it was a tad spicy for him.  Um, Tony and Hannah won’t touch it so its all mine!

Make sure you buy 100% pure pumpkin, and not the pumpkin pie version.

Garnish with salted, toasted pumpkin seeds!

Hope everyone is enjoying their Sunday!  See you tonight!