A staycation is where you are off of work, but you stay at home.  Love it!  I have a ton of stuff I want to do while I am off.  I have lots of new recipes to try, one day I am going out to lunch with my Mom and going to a movie, then the day after Thanksgiving, Hannah and I are going to take the train downtown Chicago and see all the Christmas lights!  And lots of fitness center time!

I am glad I am not alone in grabbing the Christmas spirit too early!  My blog friend (even though I am old enough to be her Mutti!)  K and I are on the same page – Christmas music on the radio!!  Um, since I have new readers this year, I have a confession to make.  I like snowmen.  Um, I may have about 300+ snowman of all shapes and sizes, not including the snowmen ornaments I have!  It is my goal, to one year have an all snowman Christmas tree!

Okay, back to today!  I had no clue what to make for breakfast, so I stopped by Panera Bread.  I called ahead, hoping my Power Breakfast Sandwich and Small Fruit Cup would be ready by the time I got there.  Um, not so much!  Now I have had issues with this Panera Bread before – they seem to have tons of people working, but its so f’ing slow!  I get there, give them my name and he says it will be right up.  Mind you, this is 10 minutes after I called in the order!  I sit back, I wait.  They said “we ran out of eggs so we are making more – it will be just a couple minutes.”  Try 10 minutes later! So it took them 20 minutes to make a breakfast sandwich and fruit cup?

Once Tony has been to a place that has slow service, bad food, he won’t go back.  Me, I’ll give it the benefit of the doubt.  But I am seriously thinking I may just drive past this place!  That being said, the Power Breakfast Sammie was. . . delicious! It has this sharp Vermont cheddar cheese that just pulled the whole thing together for me.  So my thought is next time I order it 20 minutes before I want it!

It was a very filling breakfast!  I eat this around 8:45 and didn’t fix my lunch until 1:30! I took the rest of my Chinese food from last night and just rinsed it under cold water.  I was left with 2 ounces of shrimp and 4 ounces of broccoli.  I added carrot, bean sprouts and water chestnuts, and used my Korean bbq sauce at 20 calories a tablespoon for the seasoning.

Reason # 1,202 that I love my husband!  He bought me these chips!

Yep – Habanero lime potato chips – so good!  I had 1/2 a bag while the grill was getting to temperature.

Reason number #1,203 that I love my husband?  He made dinner!  I hog the kitchen all the time, but it is nice to sit back and get served dinner!   On the menu?  Man Food! Beef roast on the grill with salt and pepper baked potatoes.  Heaven on a Plate!

Rare meat is at 140 degrees, so well pull our meat off at about 125 degrees, since it still cooks while resting.  Perfect!

My plate: 6 ounces of potato, 1 pat of butter, 5 ounces of beef and 1 tablespoon of horseradish sauce.

Dinner was: 482 calories, 36 carbs, 16 fat and 47 protein

It was so nice out tonight that we sat outside and had a glass of wine while Tony was grilling.  Thank you Tony for a great start to my relaxing staycation! I love you! 

Soon these days will be gone when our yard is filled with snow!

Stats for the Day:

• 1480 calories
• 44 fat
• 172 carbs
• 107 protein
• 18 fiber
• 50 minute walk at lunch
• 90 ounces of water – nice!

Off to snuggle with Tony!  See you tomorrow night!

Until I read Errign’s blog the other day, I never even thought about running a 5k on a treadmill before!  (And speaking of Errign – she has another giveaway – go check it out!).  I usually do my typical 5 minute warm up and then my 5 minute intervals of jogging and then sprinting the last 30 seconds, increasing the sprint on each 5 minute interval.

But today after I warmed up, I said “just run until you can’t go anymore.”  I decided to take it 5 minutes at a time. Mind you, I was only going 4.5 mph, but I was watching FoodTV (Boy Meets Grill with Bobby Flay then Guys Big Bite!).  I told myself to just watch the t.v., and to only look down at the treadmill at the beginning of each commercial.

Before I knew it I had run 20 minutes straight!  Then the next thing I knew, I was at 2.9 miles and knew I could go the distance!  At exactly 39:01 minutes of continuous running, I ran 3.2 miles!  I was such a dork – I am in the fitness center at my office, all by myself, but I put my hands in the air like I was crossing a finish line!

And I actually felt I could have gone longer!  Talk about my inner athlete starting to come out!  And all this time I told myself I couldn’t continually run when I guess I never let myself even try! I pushed outside my comfort zone, and it felt good!

I had to be creative with breakfast today since I didn’t do a full grocery shop.  I kind of felt like my bread/apple/cheese combo, when I realized we were out of bread.  And that’s when I saw them – corn tostadas!!  Each one is only 43 calories!

My egg mixture was 1 fresh egg, 1/2 cup egg beaters, 1 ounce deli ham, 1/2 ounce Mexican cheese on each tostada, spinach, and orange pepper.  I cooked the eggs before work then assembled my tostadas and put them in the office toaster oven to melt the cheese.  Then drizzled taco bell sauce on top – it was crispy, crunchy – yummy!  I had the last of the cantaloupe – 4.5 ounces.  It was almost over ripe, but still good!

My plate:

After my run I waited about 1/2 hour to eat – I actually wasn’t too hungry, but since I could feel my flood sugar dropping, I knew I had to eat.  1 cup of my pear blue cheese soup!  I brought the other half of the recipe to my co-worker.  She called me and said: “I would eat this soup for breakfast, lunch and dinner for 365 days its that good!”  Not to brag, but I do think it is a winning combo!  I had a turkey wrap on the side.

I had to work a bit late tonight, so Tony picked up some Chinese food for dinner.  I had one egg roll, 1 cup of shrimp and broccoli with 1/2 cup shrimp fried rice.  I kind of guessed on the calories – do you think I am close??

Stats for the Day:

• 1520 calories
• 42 fat
• 189 carbs (I went about 14 grams over)
• 105 protein
• 30 fiber
• 5 minute warm up
• 39 minute run!
• 5 minute cool down
• 10 minute walk with the dog after dinner
• 90 ounces of water

Gotta scoot. It’s almost 9:00 p.m. and I don’t have my comfy clothes on yet!  Hannah and I had another meeting at the high school tonight about her German Exchange Program!

If I am not going out at night, I put my pajamas on as soon as I walk in the door, even when cooking dinner!  Do you put your comfy clothes on asap?

See you tomorrow – only one more work day and I am on staycation for nine days!!!!

It was such a gross day out today.  Cold, rainy.  Neither Ed our I wanted to walk this morning!  I decided on spicy oats for breakfast!  This time I added 1 ounce of 50% reduced fat cheese into the oats – so creamy!  Before I cook the yolk to death, I always think of Brandi and Sophia who LOVE runny eggs – ew!

I actually added more Tabasco at work – not spicy enough!

For lunch I had shrimp stir-fry!  I love these noodles, only 150 calories for 5.5 ounces of noodles, which is a ton!  They are already fully cooked – just add the stirfry when you add the veggies.

My stir-fry: 4 ounces shrimp, 3 ounces broccoli slaw, 2 ounces bean sprouts, 2 tablespoons korean bbq hot sauce.  This took a long time to eat – so good!

Since today was birthday pie celebration today, I made myself a cafe mocha as a snack.  1/2 packet of SF cocoa mix, coffee, 2 tablespoons of whip cream and 1 teaspoon ice cream topping.

Dinner tonight was Chicken Pot Pie.  I am not 100% happy with this recipe, and while good, still needs some tweaking.  I’ll post the recipe when I get it right!  My sauce was just really soupy, and I added flour!

The topping is 1 cup of Bisquick to 6 tablespoons of cold milk.  It made four biscuits on top.  This baked for 15 minutes at 450 degrees.

My plate:  Gotta love the fluorescent lighting!

Stephanie at Cookin Fanatic is this weeks BSI host and she chose blue cheese!  While there are obvious choices such as grilling steak and putting blue cheese on top, or making a dip, I thought outside the box and decided to make soup!

Biz’s Pear Blue Cheese Soup with Pancetta and Pesto Bread Crostini

• 1 14.5 can of chicken broth
• 2 ripe pears, peeled and sliced
• 2 ounces blue cheese
• salt and pepper to taste
• pinch of paprika
• pinch of crushed red pepper
• 2 slices of pancetta (cooked, cooled and diced)
• 1 ounce of bread (I used my pesto bread) with 1 tablespoon of blue cheese put under the broiler until cheese is melted

Put chicken broth in pot with pears and cook until pears are tender, about 12 minutes.  Add blue cheese and seasonings.  Then using a stick blender, puree.

Pour soup in bowl, sprinkle each bowl with 1 slice diced pancetta and then put the crostini on top.  Seriously, this is such an amazing combination.  And surprisingly, not overly sweet.  I like the addition of the crushed red pepper which I decided to add last minute.

This makes 2 servings:  Soup: 169 calories, 4.5 fat, 26 carbs, 4 fiber, 9 protein  Crostini: 101 calories, 3 fat, 14 carbs, 1 fiber, 4 protein

Stats for the Day:

• 1341 calories
• 37 fat
• 176 carbs
• 75 protein
• 17 fiber
• 35 minute jog/sprint on the treadmill
• 5 minute abs
• 20 minute walk with Ed after dinner
• 90 ounces of water!

Anyone who knows me knows I love snowmen!  Look what I picked up at the grocery store tonight??  A snowman wine stopper!   Now I have two!

I’ve updated my Recipe Page above – check it out if you haven’t in a while!

Top Chef is on tonight!  See you tomorrow night!

I am sure you are wondering what the title of the post could possibly mean!  Somehow, not one, but two people Googled: “Fish With Big Lips” and somehow found my blog!  The funny thing is that I probably have 5 fish posts in 14 months of this blog!  

I got up in time to take the dog for a walk.  You know the drill, all I have to do is say “walk” and he’s at the back door in two seconds!  Today was the same.  Except for one thing.  As soon as I put the retractable leash on him, he went back up the stairs and into our bedroom where Tony was watching the morning news!  What??  I kept saying, “Ed, want to go for a walk??”  Nothing!  So I went alone!  A quick 20 minutes I was back.  When I walked in the door Tony said “I think Ed regretted his decision after the first five minutes you were gone!”   But then I had to get ready for work and there was no time.

Breakfast: 1/2 Panera Sesame Bagel, 1/2 cup egg beaters, 1 ounce goat cheese, 1 ounce deli ham and 4 ounces cantaloupe.  My bagel got a tad too dark, but it was still tasty!

Can I just tell you how fricken good my lunch was???  Since I worked almost a full day on Sunday, which is my grocery shop/menu plan day, I am kind of flying by the seat of my pants this week, which is so not like me!  I was looking in the fridge today, and remembered that I had turkey tenderloin leftover.  Mind you, this was teriyaki marinated turkey!   So I did what any normal person would do and I washed it under cold water!  Why you ask??  Because I wanted to make a Rachel!

My lunch was the other half of the bagel from breakfast, 4 ounces of sliced turkey, 2 ounces of sauerkraut, my homemade mustard, and 1 ounce of provolone cheese!  This sammie was amazing!

I went in the deep freeze and pulled out a serving of my Two Point Acorn Squash Bisque- score!  So it was a soup and sammie day!

Before I go any further, I have to add to yesterday’s meal plan.  You see, while I can have cakes and cookies laying around I am not tempted one bit.  Apple fritter on the counter, who cares?  But pretzels.  Pretzels are my crack!  Especially these pretzels!

So if anyone is keeping score, please add 250 calories to my total yesterday!!!

So since I am working out of my pantry and freezer, dinner tonight was chicken legs, chicken wings, Pam fried red potatoes and luckily I had enough stuff to make salads on the side!

I had one small chicken leg, 2 wings, 4 ounces of potatoes and the above salad.  Um, turns out I deep fat fried the chicken!

So while still kind of high in fat, I still met my goals for the day!!

Stats for the Day:

• 1519 calories
• 51 fat
• 130 carbs
• 129 protein
• 12 fiber (okay, so that was 1/2 what it should be!)
• 20 minute walk in the morning
• 50 minute walk at lunch
• 15 minute walk with Ed after dinner!

I have to say one more thing before I start to watch Biggest Loser!  Ed and I are down by the river and I see a black cat.  Then I notice that this cat is really big.  Then I notice that this black cat is a giant SKUNK!  I don’t know if any of you have experienced a pet getting sprayed by a skunk before, but the smell lingers forever!!  Happily we made it home safe!

Off to watch BL!  See you tomorrow night!

I loved reading all your comments about your inner athlete and that you got a kick going back down memory lane with me!  I bring you week three of really getting serious with losing this weight – while I have maintained my weight somewhat this past year, I need to maintain it at about 25 pounds less!

I LOST TWO POUNDS THIS WEEK! So I am down 5.4 in three weeks!  At this rate, hopefully my goal of hitting 155 on New Years will be a reality!

Ed decided to chase ducks on our morning walk.  It’s so funny, he has to be almost on top of them before he sees them!

I enjoyed really fresh cantaloupe and the rest of the blackberries for breakfast, and I made an egg sammie on Aldi’s wrap – 9 grams of fiber in each wrap!

First order of business though??  Fill up my Bubba Keg!  This holds 34 ounces of water.  I had one before lunch and one in the afternoon, and then had 20 ounces with dinner – water intake goal complete!

My blood sugar was around 140 before the walk, so I needed to have 15 carbs so I wouldn’t drop too low.

Lunch was one cup of leftover veggie fried rice, a 100 calorie egg roll, 4 ounces of cucumber drizzled with 1 tbsp. Annie’s Asian Ginger Dressing, and a small apple.

I loved the added crushed red pepper to the cukes!

I did a pot roast in the crock pot today.  But instead of using the drippings from the crock pot (and avoid all that fat!) I always make lazy gravy.  Each 1/4 cup is only 20 calories!  Just add packet to 1 cup water, bring to a boil and you are done!

While my plate had 6 ounces of pot roast, I only ate half, with one cup mashed potatoes and steamed carrots on the side

HOMEMADE MUSTARD!!!!!!!!!

Okay, anyone who knows me personally knows I LOVE mustard.  All kinds of mustard.  I love it so much and Tony loves me so much that he even took me to the Mt. Horeb, Wisconsin Mustard Museum!!  Thanks again for that trip Tony!

So I picked up a copy of Saveur Magazine, and they had a recipe for making a Spicy Guinness Mustard.  What??  I never ever thought to make my own mustard!!  Since I don’t like Guinness, here is my version, and also based on what I had on hand.

BIZ’S SAM ADAMS SUMMER ALE SPICY MUSTARD

• 6 ounces Sam Adams Beer
• 5 ounces mustard seed
• 1/2 cup red wine vinegar
• 1/2 tablespoon kosher salt
• 1/2 tsp. fresh ground pepper
• 1/8 tsp. ground cinnamon
• 1/8 tsp. ground gloves
• 1/8 tsp. ground nutmeg
• 1/8 tsp. ground allspice

I put everything into a tupperware container with a lid.  Let sit for 1 – 2 days until mustard seeds are softened.  Mix and food processor and you are done!  Seriously, this took all of about 9 minutes of hands on time!

My mustard seeds fresh:

After the two day soak:

Dump in Food Processor”:

This made about 1 1/2 cups of mustard!  It’s spicy, tangy – yum!  And turns out perfect for dipping pretzels into it!

This will keep for up to six months in a jelly jar.  I can’t wait to make a sammie with it!

Stats for the Day:

• 1380 calories
• 48 fat
• 176 carbs
• 75 protein
• 26 fiber
• 20 minute walk with Ed
• 45 minute walk at lunch
• 80 ounces of water – gone!

Only four more days of work for me before I am off for NINE DAYS!  Hope everyone survived their Monday – see you tomorrow night!

Yesterday I ran for 9.0 mph for 30 seconds, and actually I felt I could go for even longer!  However, at 163 pounds (um, and age 41!) I couldn’t make it to 10 mph.

Growing up I was a four season athlete.  Fall was Field Hockey (my friend Ashley will appreciate this!), Winter was indoor track, Spring was outdoor track then summer was softball.  Turns out if you work out 2+ hours a day, you can pretty much eat whatever you want.  I have distinct memories of hitting the food court after practice, maybe eating cheese fries, a slice of pie, THEN going home to dinner!  When I graduated high school I was 116 pounds!

You are going to love this early 80’s picture of me (my freshman year) – I was a sprinter in high school.  Dig the glasses!

I am positive my Dad took this picture, because he loved filming in black and white.  Look at the vintage Nike running shoes!  Then fast forward to senior year of high school:

What I am trying to get at is that I feel that the athlete within me is still alive and kicking, just trying to get out!  And what I need to do is get back to lots of exercise – not only to help control my diabetes, but to kick start the last 30 pounds I need to lose.

Goals for this Week:

• minimum of 60 minutes of exercise each day (Sunday is my day off!)
• drink 80 ounces of water
• maintain calories around 1500
• limit carbs to 150 a day

I ended up having to work 7.5 hours today.    I had a quick breakfast before leaving the house – 2 ounces of my pesto bread egg sammie, and delicious fruit on the side – seriously the best raspberries and blackberries I’ve had in a long time!

I actually didn’t think I was going to be at work so long, so I had to scrounge for food at lunch.  i went to the freezer at work and was happily surprised that I had Chicken Brunswick Stew there!  Although it wasn’t packaged very well, and had a slight "freezer burn” taste – it was hot in a cold office, so it fit the bill!

What does Biz make for dinner on a Sunday when she worked all day?

Yep – the Queen of pizza making ordered delivery pizza!  I was so hungry, I ended up eating SIX RECTANGLES!  But I still think in the whole grand scheme of things, I did okay.

What are you doing to find your inner athlete?  Let’s have a kick ass week!  See you tomorrow night!

When Tony and I sat down at the diner, on the table was a card saying that they were now serving multi-grain pancakes AND they had the nutritional information!!  170 calories for 3 pancakes and they had sugar free syrup!  But did I get that??  That would be no!  Mind you, I ate half of this, and I actually estimated the calories to be about 450 for half.  Um, let’s just say breakfast was just shy of 600 calories!  I had the Irish omelet, which had corned beef and Swiss cheese.  I could have ordered an egg white or egg beaters to reduce the calories, but didn’t.  It was so fricken good!

I love diner coffee!

Our dog happily ate my leftovers!

Guess what I am making?  Homemade Mustard!  While it took less than five minutes to put together, it isn’t ready for two more days!  You’ll just have to come back for the recipe!

I found this recipe for Pesto Bread and knew it was going in my ever growing pile of things to make.  While it only had two tablespoons of olive oil, it was such a supple dough, and called for powdered milk as one of the ingredients!  The only difference is I chose to make mine into baguettes, not typical bread loaves.

I cheated and bought store bought pesto:

I split the dough in half, and rolled each half out to about 9 x 14 rectangle.

Then spread out 1/4 cup of pesto over top and about 1 tablespoon Parmesan cheese.

Then rolled it up and pinched the seams:

Then you cut this long roll in half, exposing the pesto:

Then starting at the top, make it into a braid.

Then I put into my baguette pan to rise an additional hour.  I remembered to put Pam on the form this time so they wouldn’t stick!

While the bread was resting, I had the best lunch!  I had to recover from breakfast, so lunch was 6 ounces of Fage, drizzled with cinnamon and 1 teaspoon Agave Nectar (only $2.99 at Trader Joe’s!), 10 raspberries, 6 black berries, 14 everything crackers from Trader Joe’s and one ounce of mozzarella cheese. 

Then it was time to take the bread out!  Both Tony and Hannah loved it.  It’s a very soft bread, which I wasn’t expecting.  I tend to like breads that have a crunchy crust!  But this is very tasty!

Since the kitchen was already a mess, I decided to make Snickerdoodle cookies for my Aunt Martha.  She recently had surgery, and has lost some weight.  So what better thing to fatten her up than with her favorite cookie!  I love this recipe because it produces a slightly crisp bite, but then is completely soft in the middle.

Soft Snickerdoodle Cookies

• 1 cup butter (it’s like Paula Dean has taken over my body!)
• 1 1/2 cups sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 2 3/4 cup flour
• 2 teaspoons cream of tartar
• 1 teaspoon baing soda
• 1/4 salt

Toss the cookies in: 3 tablespoons of sugar mixed with 1 tablespoon cinnamon.

I use my melon baller to get the exact same shape, then just released them into the cinnamon/sugar mixture.  At this point, they actually look more like butter than cookies!

And the secret is to get every inch covered in the sugar mixture!

And I am pretty sure its mandatory to have the same amount of cookies as the size of glass of milk for dunking!

I let Hannah taste one, and as soon as I saw her eyes roll in the back of her head, I knew they were good!  Her comment? “If I threw up right now, I’d be throwing up rainbows!”  I know, she’s weird – that’s why I love her!

Dinner was a marinated turkey tenderloin from Aldi.

Since it was teriyaki marinated, I decided to make fried rice!  I was about to google a recipe when I saw one on The Hungry Housewife!  The only thing I did differently from hers was to add broccoli to get more veggies in, and added two eggs instead of one.  I normally don’t use my electric stove to make rice, it never comes out right, but I followed her directions, and it came out perfect!

I sautéed the veggies:

I added two eggs:

My plate comes in at 473 calories, 53 carbs, 12 fat and 40 protein.

Even though I under spiced the fried rice, it was still too spicy for Tony – sorry sweets!  He’s convinced that since I’ve eaten so much hot stuff, I have no taste buds left!  I kicked my dinner up by drizzling my Korean Style BBQ sauce – 1 tablespoon is only 20 calories!

NEW PERSONAL RECORD!  I went to the gym today, and did my walk/jog/sprint routine for 45 minutes.  My top sprint speed which I sustained for 30 seconds???  9.0 mph!!!!  I tried to bring it 10.0 mph, but at 163 pounds, that’s pushing it – I was so happy though!

Stats for the Day:

• 1404 calories
• 61 fat
• 129 carbs
• 94 protein
• only 9 grams of protein
• 10 minute walk with the dog
• 45 minute treadmill walk/jog/sprint

Tony and I are about to watch UP!  We both love the movie – if you haven’t seen it yet – it’s wonderful!  See you tomorrow night!

Whew, we made it!  So glad it’s the weekend!

This morning I was all by myself, so it was coffee for one!  I love using the French press – you can get the coffee just the way you like it.  I am in the middle on coffee – not too weak, not too strong.  I think Hannah and Tony think I usually make the coffee too weak!  This was just right!

I knew one of my co-workers was going to be bringing bagels in, so I made a Pam fried egg at home and brought a slice of ham and one ounce of fresh mozzarella to make an egg sammie.  I love when bagels blister like this in the toaster oven!

I had a sliced gala apple on the side:

Aldi has these wraps that are huge and only 90 calories and 9 grams of fiber!  I decided to make a pizza for lunch.  Preheat your oven to 370 (that’s what the back of the package said!).  Cook the wrap naked for 5 minutes, then add toppings and bake an additional 8 to 10 minutes.  My toppings were 1/3 cup of my stuffed shell filling, 1/4 cup homemade sauce, diced red pepper and 1 ounce of shredded Mexican cheese.  I was surprised that the wrap actually got a bit crispy! 

And it’s already starting.  You know what I am talking about.  It’s the food gifts people get in the office starting right about this time of year.  One of the people I work with got gourmet candy apples.  Holy yum, if there is anything more insulin worthy, I have no idea what it is!

I am proud to say that I just walked away, but I’ll be dreaming of these tonight!  I’ve always loved the salty/sweet combo!

I decided to make burgers and oven fries for dinner.  My fries were tossed in 2 tsp. vegetable oil, salt and pepper and baked for 40 minutes at 425.  I decided to may myself sliders – each burger was 1.5 ounces, with 1 ounce of avocado on each side, 1/2 ounce of cheese and lots of banana peppers!  This is just one potato!

I may have dipped my fries in this!

Perfect Friday night food, even if it isn’t pizza!

Stats for the Day:

• 1427 calories
• 69 fat
• 138 carbs
• 77 protein
• 19 fiber
• 20 minute morning walk with Ed
• moving boxes at work for 1.5 + hours (counts as exercise in my book!)

Off to snuggle with Tony!  See you tomorrow night!

Wow, thanks for all your nice comments on my pictures yesterday!    Today was not a spooky morning at all – sunshine all the way!

And now you can see how pretty the river is!

Before taking Ed on our walk to the river, I put together a quick frittata.  My secret ingredient?  Canned potatoes!  Aldi carries there for like .79 cents a can.  I love using canned potatoes because they are already fully cooked.

I sliced four ounces of potatoes and shredded one medium sized zucchini.  I put the shredded zucchini in paper towels and squeezed out as much as I could, then layered that on top, sprinkled with crushed red pepper and put 1 cup of egg beaters.

As I was walking the dog I thought “I forgot to add the goat cheese!”  By the time I got back, it was practically done, so I put an ounce of herbed goat cheese on top and put it under the broiler to slightly melt and stay put.  I had a whole wheat mini bagel on the side

It was so good!  I would have liked it a bit better if the goat cheese was incorporated, but I loved it – the potatoes were nice and tender and got a bit of a crisp on the bottom.  BTW this cooked for 20 minutes at 350 degrees.

I was so excited when Jenna at Foodie in the City picked Ricotta Cheese as this weeks BSI ingredient!  I had already planned on making stuffed shells so it worked out great!  I don’t have an exact recipe though!  I cooked up about 6 ounces of ground sirloin.  Once the meat was cooked and drained, I added fresh spinach and then removed from heat and put a top on until the spinach wilted.

The ricotta mixture was 2 cups fat free ricotta, one egg, Italian seasonings and crushed red pepper.

Once the meat mixture was cool, I mixed the two together.  On the side I cooked 12 medium size shells.  Each shell got about two tablespoons of the mixture.

Into a square pan, I poured 1 cup of my homemade sauce over the top.

Then sprinkled with two ounces of 50% reduced fat cheese.

While I made this on Sunday, I brought it to work today for my friend and I – yes, this is two servings – each serving is 6 stuffed shells!

This was so filling!  I loved every bite of it.  When I got home from work, Hannah and I took a walk with the dog for 30 minutes.  I needed to burn some more calories because we went out to dinner together, just the two of us!

Hannah loves their chicken teriyaki bento boxes.  We were bummed to find out you could only order them for lunch!  So we went with plan B and just ordered different appetizers:

Tempura shrimp and vegetables.  I ate one shrimp, one sweet potato (even though I normally don’t like them!) and one red pepper.

We got an order of vegetable potstickers.  I ate two.

We split a small order of fried rice – this looked to be just over one cup.

And then we got sizzling shrimp.  While good, I don’t think this plate deserved the $9 price tag!  And sadly, too spicy for Hannah!   It had maybe four cut up shrimp on the plate?

Estimated calories of what I ate: 597 calories, 82 carbs, 23 fat and 14 protein.

I try to embarrass Hannah when we are out, as any good Mother would!  When she thanked me for dinner I told her “that’s okay, I am just going to transfer the money from your account to my account tomorrow anyway!”  This made her laugh!

I had to return some Almond Butter to Trader Joe’s – I accidentally got unsalted – yuck!  While there I just had to oogle at my favorite part of the store.  I actually walked out with no cheese – a first for me!

So thanks for the great date night Hannah!  And goodnight to my love Tony, who is out of town on business tonight – can’t wait to kiss your lips tomorrow!

Stats for the Day:

• 1460 calories
• 45 fat
• 178 carbs (a tad over today)
• 80 protein
• 11 fiber (rats – not enough!)
• 20 minute walk before work
• 30 minute walk after work

It’s time for me to catch up on Glee!  Only one more day til the weekend, we can make it!  See you tomorrow night!

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!