First a quick thank you to Hannah – who twice came to my office – once this morning when I got to work and realized I’d forgotten my diabetes bag (with insulin!) on the kitchen counter.  I ate my hard boiled egg and couldn’t enjoy my muffin until she brought my insulin – thanks Hanners!  And then after work she brought me this!

Since all my meat was frozen, I hit up my 50% off bin and was able to score a ONE POUND ribeye for $4.75!  I decided to make a surf and turf with shrimp that was also on sale – 30 count, peeled and deveined were only $6.99 a pound!  This was a score since I knew Hannah wouldn’t be eating the beef.  I ended up picking this up for our side – love the brown rice/wild rice combo!

My kitchen was a steamy mess for about 10 minutes!  No good pictures to be had while cooking!

Since it was raining outside, I had to use my cast iron skillets indoors – and it gets smokey really fast – you know I am cooking when the smoke alarms go off!

My plate:  3 ounces steak, 3 ounces shrimp, and 1 cup whole grain medley:  464 calories, 10 fat, 42 carbs, 49 protein and 3 fiber.

 

It was quick and so simple – and my roast is defrosting for tomorrow as we speak!

Stats for the Day:

• 1194 calories
• 49 fat
• 107 carbs
• 69 protein
• 18 fiber
• 40 minute Biggest Loser DVD

I HAVE TOMORROW OFF!  So excited – Hannah and I are going to have our “back to school” day.  We plan on getting up, having a light breakfast, hitting the gym, then our spa day begins!

Me:  15 minute aroma therapy, 60 minute facial, eye brow wax, make-up application and free gift – all this for only $50!  I still have $36 left on my gift card from mother’s day too! 😀

Hannah:  Manicure, Pedicure and Paraffin Hand Wax Treatment

Then we figure we deserve Fried Green Beans at Friday’s!  I mean, it counts as a vegetable, right?  

I won’t post until tomorrow night with our Girls Day Out – Happy Friday all! 😀

Yep, trying to be a 20-something by telling you I had a hugh jass salad – every time I read that on a blog I laugh!  I got this “lite” salad dressing at Big Lots of all places – 70 calories for 2 tablespoons, so flavorful and cheap – $2.00 a bottle!  It’s brand name is Cape Cod:

So I took the 3 servings of last nights cauliflower mac n cheese, added 4 cups of chicken broth, and pureed it – I added crushed red pepper and Italian seasoning – while quite good, and 228 calories for 2 cups, I wish I would have added fat free half and half to make it creamier.

Altogether lunch comes in at 391 calories, 24 fat, 5 protein, 30 carbs and 8 fiber!

I did the Biggest Loser Workout Vol. II again at lunch today – I assembled a 40 minute routine that included Bob’s 15 minute boot camp, which I loved.  And I have officially confirmed that I don’t like Kim Lyons.  Half way through the 10 minute high cardio and I wanted to yell “shut up!”

So I think I’ll see if my library has any “Bob” workout videos. 😀

Lunch break is over – see you tonight for ????  I forgot to defrost my roast!

Ever since being diagnosed with diabetes, I’ve steered away from baking, which was something I did a lot of pre-diabetes.  When Hannah was little that was one of our favorite things to do on the weekends.  I have vivid memories of her standing on a stool, with an apron on, and me standing behind her trying to help her use the hand mixer. 

I routinely heard her say “I can do it all by myself!”  And she could! 😀

I saw on Meghann’s blog the other day that she made muffins, but made the batter the night before so all she had to do was bake them when she got up.  This recipe was so quick to put together, within 30 minutes I had fresh muffins out of the oven.

Blueberry Lime Muffins

• 1.75 cups white whole wheat flour (I use King Arthur – its more expensive but worth it to me)
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 cup baking Splenda (my brand is called Ideal – no calories!)
• 1/4 cup vegetable oil
• 1 large egg
• 1/2 cup egg whites
• 1 six ounce container lime yogurt (I used Fit&Active brand from Aldi)
• 1 cup fresh blueberries, tossed in a teaspoon of flour (so they don’t sink to the bottom of the muffin)
• 6 – 1/2 tsp. of Splenda brown sugar (so each muffin got 1/2 tsp. of this before going in the oven)

Mix dry ingredients, mix wet ingredients and combine just until there are no more lumps.  Pour in blueberries and mix just until you can’t see the flour on the blueberries.  Overstirring (is that even a word?) your batter will make a more dense muffin.

Pour into 6 large muffin tin – bake at 350 for 20 minutes.  I love the crust I got on this – one trick – pour about a tablespoon of olive oil on a paper towel and rub the bottom and sides of your muffin tin with the olive oil, it gives a nice crust to muffins!

I almost want to call these “cake” muffins!  Love the lime/blueberry combination too – very refreshing! 

I decided to bring a hard boiled egg as my protein, with – you guessed it – Tabasco!

Morning break is over – come back for lunch Giant Chopped Salad with Cauliflower Cheese Soup (made from last nights Cauliflower Mac N Cheese!)

Lunch didn’t hold me until dinner, so around 3:30 I snacked on these:

I am slowly getting used to these unsalted, not roasted almonds – although I do prefer the salty ones! 😀

Hannah was my soux chef, fixing the dry rub while I got the cheese sauce going for the cauliflower.  No real recipe here, just a little of this, little of that.

this has Italian seasoning, celery salt, cayenne pepper, garlic powder, dry mustard – and a touch of brown sugar

I cooked the cauliflower in the microwave whole – just pressed my fresh veggie button – I chopped it up after it was cooked.

I hate raw cauliflower – well, unless I dip it in cheesy artichoke dip!  The cheese sauce is just 2 tablespoons butter, 2 tablespoons flour, 2 cups skim milk and 8 ounces of cheddar cheese.  I mixed the chopped cauliflower in the sauce, then topped with whole wheat bread crumbs and baked at 400 degrees for 20 minutes until the cheese is all bubbly:

It tastes like mac n cheese to me – but low carb!

It made a whole casserole, so if you make it 6 servings, each serving is 228 calories, 16 fat, 7.3 carbs, 12 protein and .5 fiber. 

I did not bring my trusty meat thermometer outside and when I brought the chops in, they were still a bit raw in the middle!  Notice I barely put any seasonings on Tony’s chops – you can tell the difference between mine and his!  You can tell on the left one where the brown sugar caramelized and made a crunchy crust!

So I remedied the undercooked pork by cutting it in half and putting the center part on the grill:

Then you get grill marks like this!

I ate 3 ounces of pork and one serving of the mac n cheese – dinner comes in at 425 calories, 27 fat and 7 carbs.

Stats for the Day:

• 1187 calories
• 55 fat
• 67 carbs
• 22 fiber
• 93 protein
• 45 minute walk at lunch

I have a tip!  I don’t know about you, but reading instruction manuals does nothing for me – I am a “show and tell” kind of person.  You show me how to do it and I can.  I’ve had my camera since Christmas and still don’t know half the things it can do!  Well, that, and I don’t know much about lighting and exposure and shutter speed!

My father was an excellent photographer, and when he tried to show me I had no interest!  I regret that!  Anywho, I went to youtube.com and watched a tutorial on my camera, and while I don’t know exactly what they were talking about, I’ve found things I never even knew were on the camera! 

Hopefully tomorrow is my Friday, if all goes well Hannah and I will have our annual “Back to School” day together – we started it when she went to kindergarten.  What we do changes from year to year, but we spend a full day together – last year we went downtown to see the Bean in Chicago.  This year is bowling and a spa afternoon!  Fingers crossed I’ll be able to take Friday off! 

See you tomorrow! 😀

Absolutely no calories – my noodles have no calories!  Update!  You can find out where to buy them here!

It says its the whole package is 2.5 servings, but with no calories, I just dumped the whole thing in!

I ended up cutting up one of the beef ribs from last nights dinner and used up the rest of the broccoli as well – I would have loved to have more veggies to add in, but I didn’t have time this morning – turns out someone (me!) didn’t want to get up today!

After I put my meal into www.calorieking.com, lunch comes in at 283 calories, 7 fat, 36 protein, 16 carbs and 3 fiber – I may have to sneak into my almond stash later today, we’ll see how this holds me!

Gotta get my walking shoes on for the rest of my lunch break.  Come on back for dinner. . . Blackened Pork Chops and Cauliflower Mac N Cheese!