Wow, did this week go by fast or what??  Pretty soon Hannah will be going to Prom and graduating – then leaving for Germany – she actually leaves for Germany in just over six weeks!

Breakfast yesterday was really good – I had forgotten that I had picked up red chile tortillas the last time I was at Whole Foods.  Inside was 1/4 of a red pepper I sauteed, with egg beaters, 1/2 ounce 75% reduced fat cheese and baby spinach.  I used 1/2 a container of Chobani honey yogurt, mixed with1 tablespoon sugar free syrup as my apple dipper. 😀  Breakfast comes in at 376 calories, 47 carbs, 31 protein, 7.1 fat and 15.1 fiber! 😀

Since my chili recipe the night before last wasn’t exactly like my Cincinnati Chili, I decided to put it in caloriecount to get the right stats.

Another Chili by Biz!  (printer friendly version here)

Each 1.25 cup serving:  317 calories, 8.9 fat, 27.4 carbs, 7.5 fiber and 32.7 protein)

Ingredients

Directions

1. 1. Heat heavy pot over medium-high heat. Add garlic, tomato paste, chili powder, oregano, cinnamon, 1 teaspoon salt, pepper and allspice and cook until fragrant – about a minute. Stir in chicken broth, tomato sauce, vinegar and sugar.
2. 2. Add beef and chicken and stir to break it up. Bring to a boil, reduce heat to medium-low, and simmer until chili is deep brown and slightly thickened, about 20 minutes. Season with salt if necessary. Keep refrigerated for three days or frozen for up to 2 months).

I never actually used a spoon, I just dipped my tortilla chips! With 1 oz. of tortilla chips, lunch comes in at 454 calories, 46 carbs, 35 protein, 15.4 fat and 9 fiber

I am sending this recipe to Christina’s Friday Firsts, since its the first time I made this chili! 😀

For dinner, Tony, Hannah and I met up with my step-son Joe and her girlfriend Lizz.  We went to her favorite Chinese restaurant after she went to Joe’s favorite and just thought it was good, but not great.   We usually go to Heng Wing – which is always consistently good, so the bar was set pretty high!

I started out with a Miller Lite:

They had dinner specials for only $8.25 – each came with 1 egg roll, 2 crab rangoons, shrimp fried rice and your entree of choice!  I ordered the non-fried chicken and hot peppers with extra broccoli.  Can I just say the portions are huge!!

lots of veggies though!

I love crab rangoon.  I need to find maybe an oven version of this?!

note the orange insulin pen on the side of my plate! um, my guess is that dinner was around 88 carbs!

Lizz loves hot stuff too, and I was glad when she ordered their house hot sauce – so good!  But I quickly learned – a little of this goes a long way!

Dinner: 814 calories, 88 carbs, 45 protei, 19.6 fat and 4.8 fiber

And Joe paid for dinner – thanks Joe! 😀

It was so nice outside, we took the long way home!

I am proud to say that my orchid I got for Administrative Assistant’s day is alive and well!  Turns out they like it really dry – I can do that!

And my other boss just gave me (belated!) a Nike gift card!  What should I get??

Stats for Thursday:

• 15 minute AM yoga
• 30-day shred level 1
• 1 mile run on treadmill
• 1,655 calories, 181 carbs, 111 protein, 42 fat and 29 fiber

I might actually be making pasta for dinner tonight instead of pizza!  I will be killing two birds with one stone – the BSI is artichokes, and I am going to try to make a homemade pasta incorporating the artichokes, which will also be my submission to Natasha’s Pasta Makeover Dish!

Alright – its time for Yoga!  Make today a great Friday!

For whatever reason, yesterday turned into comfort food day!   I started out the day with a baked burrito, for lack of a better word.  I threw out the original recipe, so I can’t give proper credit, but here was my take on it!

• 1 low carb tortilla (mine was 110 calories and 11 fiber!)
• 1/4 cup black beans
• 1 cup baby spinach
• 1/2 cup egg beaters
• 1/2 ounce Cabot’s hot habenero cheese (which is quickly becoming my favorite cheese!)

Heat oven to 350.  Put your tortilla in an oven safe dish:

Add the black beans and spinach, and pour egg beaters over top, topping it with the shredded cheese.

Bake at 350 for 30-35 minutes, until the eggs are set.   Be sure to spray your bowl with Pam so it comes out easily after cooking.  The result?

Delicious!  The top of the tortilla was crisp and crunchy, the bottom was chewy and the filling was tender.  Again, the possibilities of what to put inside are endless! 😀  This baked in the oven while I did my 30 minute beginner AM yoga yesterday morning!

with 1/2 cup Chobani honey yogurt and apple, breakfast comes in at 415 calories, 53 carbs, 33 protein, 7 fat and 5.8 fiber! 😀

I have to tell you, that I am loving doing yoga in the morning.  For one thing, it just stretches you out, but you are actually using your core muscles to do the moves – and I am finally catching on to the lingo, i.e. downward dog, child’s pose! 😀

Does anyone get Cuisine at Home Magazine?  The June issue had a recipe for macaroni and cheese soup that looked delicious!  Only one problem – one cup was 475 calories and 28 grams of fat!  I decided to tweak the recipe and came up with this one:

Biz’s Macaroni and Cheese Soup (printer friendly version here)

Ingredients

Directions

1. Cook macaroni according to package. In large saucepan, melt butter and saute celery until soft, about 5 minutes.
2. Stir in flour and cook for 1 minute. Deglaze with wine and simmer until nearly evaporated. Stir in broth, mustard, nutmeg, and cayenne. Simmer until slightly thickened, about 5 minutes, then whisk in milk and warm though. Do not let the boil.
3. Add cheddar – 1 cup at a time, allowing to melt completely. Stir in cooked macaroni, lemon juice and salt to taste.

I used these noodles:

Once the butter and flour cooked for a minute – I added 1/2 cup of pinot grigio to make the roux.

It made a wonderful thick base for the soup!

I brought some to my co-workers and they both thought – is there beer in here?  But the wine gives it just a little extra flavor!  I had some cooked broccoli and decided to add it at the end.

On the side I had 3 oz. of chicken breast sprinkled with Frank’s Hot Sauce and celery and carrots on the side – dipped in Frank’s hot sauce and 1 tablespoon fat free ranch (no picture of the ranch though, but it was spicy good!)

527 calories, 47 carbs, 44 protein, 18.6 fat and 5.9 fiber

I had my new standard afternoon snack – 1 ounce unsalted almonds, which I am still trying to get used to eating without being smoked and salted!

161 calories, 6.1 carbs, 5.9 protein, 13.8 fat and 3.4 fiber

I had defrosted ground sirloin for burgers, but then I did a complete 180 and decided to make my Cincinnati Chili!  You can find a printable version of my original recipe here, but I made a couple changes last night – I used only 1/2 cup ground sirloin and 1/2 pound cooked ground chicken at the end, and I added beans!  I know, I know, there aren’t supposed to be beans in Cincinnati chili – but what can I say?  I like beans!

What I like most about this recipe is that it is ready to eat in 30 minutes – most chilis take hours!  And while the chili was simmering, I thought – CHILI CHEESE FRIES! I cut one potato and parboiled for about 10 minutes.  You don’t want to cook them too long, otherwise they’ll fall apart in the fryer.

make sure to drain and pat the potatoes dry before adding to the fryer

The base of my plate:  3 oz. fries (I add 3 ounce potato + 1 tsp. vegetable oil to get the calories)

The topping:  1/2 ounce hot habanero cheese!

Topped with 1 cup of the chili!  It was so good!

Dinner comes in at: 512 calories, 37 carbs, 38 protein, 24 fat and 5.2 fiber

Stats for Tuesday:

• 30 minute AM Yoga
  
• 45 minute walk at lunch – did you know yesterday was National Walk During Lunch Day?
• 1,615 calories, 142 carbs, 121 protein, 64 fat and 30 fiber

I can’t believe today is Thursday already!  Hope everyone makes it a good one! 😀

Thanks to everyone who commented on my 250,000 page view giveaway!  By the looks of it, I am not alone in the love of all things pizza!  And there were some very interesting combinations I think I need to try – soon!

Using random.org:

Lucky 13 Won!

Ally @ Sweet & Savory, on April 25, 2010 at 5:06 pm Said: Edit Comment

I think I might be even more obsessed with pizza than you….I could eat it everyday, no joke! I’d love to win this giveaway, as I’d love to try out the deep dish pan!

Ally – send me your mailing address to: bdl319@gmail.com – congrats!

I LOVED yesterdays breakfast!!  I had half of a baked potato left over from the night before.  I scooped out most of the potato, and then scrambled black beans, egg beaters and baby spinach with salt and pepper.  Then I stuffed the pepper half and put a .8 slice of pepper cheese on top, and put it in the microwave.

love the spicieness of the cheese!

Here’s what it looks like cut open!

This was so filling and delicious!  You may be seeing lots of variations of this in the near future! 😀  And yep, still have blackberries on the side – I’ve been lucky that my store has been selling them for .99 a pint, and I can never pass that up!

Bellieve it or not, breakfast comes in at 317 calories, 43 carbs, 19.1 protein, 7.9 fat and 12 fiber!

Do you ever have one of those days where you are looking in your fridge, you don’t really want what you’ve planned, but not sure what to put together??  I give you then, the plate of lots of things!  One slice deli ham, one slice roasted turkey, 1 ounce New York style garlic chips (very garlicy and delicious!!), grilled zucchini left over from last night, red pepper, cucumbers and baby carrots drizzled with 2 tablespoons fat free dressing.  Oh, and four hot peppers! 😀

Lunch: 475 caloires, 55 carbs, 23 protein, 19 fat and 8.4 fiber

It was delicious – a little bit of everything and it took me a long time to eat!  I did end up having an afternoon snack, I need to bring almonds back into my diet – they are known to help lower cholesterol, and while I am on medication for it, every little bit helps, right?!

I had defrosted bone in chicken breasts for dinner.  My sister is afraid of bones in food, but they help retain the moisture so well – it’s really hard to overcook!  On the side I decided to pull my spaetzle maker out – Hannah absolutely loved it, she had some when she got home.  I joked that when she moves out, I’ll make sure she has a spaetzle maker – so easy!

1 cup flour, 1 teaspoon salt, 1/2 teaspoon peper, 2 eggs, 1/4 cup milk - that's it!

Let the batter sit 10 minutes while the water comes to a boil.  These literally take about 2-3 minutes at tops.  Drain until your ready to use, then Pam fry right before serving.

the dough will be loose - that's perfect!

on my plate: delicious! Just a slight crispness to the outside, but tender on the inside

I always start this type of chicken skin side down - when you flip it over the fat from the skin kind of bastes the chicken as it cooks

With grilled broccoli and half a chicken breast.  I ended up eating half of what was on my plate – about 4 ounces of chicken.

I liked the bbq sauce on the broccoli! Dinner: 524 calories, 56 carbs,49 protein, 12.4 fat and 10.3 fiber

You guys are going to love my lunch today . . .but you’ll have to come back tomorrow for the recipe!!  I made a macaroni and cheese soup with brocoli – holy moly is it good!!  Best part?  The star of the show was Cabot cheese!

Hot Habanero??!!

While you guys know that I go on and on about my love of the 75% reduced fat cheese, I have never seen the hot habanero before!  So the recipe I came up with was 3 cups of cheese, so I subbed 1/2 cup of the hot habanero and that was the perfect amount of flavorful heat – best part too is the nutrition – around 350 for 1.5 cups! 😀 Don’t you love how I tease you like that?!

I also forgot to mention that we have a new hostess in town for BSI this week – she chose artichokes!   Thanks for hosting this week Kim! 😀

Stats for Monday:

• 40 minute Janetha’s full body training (damn – some of those were hard – okay all of them were!)
• 45 minute walk at lunch
• 1,477 calories, 160 carbs, 97 protein, 53 fat and 34 fiber! 😀

I got an A!

And I am glad I am not the only one who isn’t a morning person!!  But I realize the only way that can happen is that once the alarm goes off, just get out of bed.  Don’t put your head back down at that pillow!  I laid my head back down today and the next thing I knew, it was 30 minutes later.  So I woke up at 6:30 instead of 6:00 – I still don’t have to leave my house until 8:30 to get to work on time! 😀

So, yoga it is today – I have time for a 30 minute routine!

Who watched Biggest Loser last night??  I swear, every time Oneal and Sunshine get together, I cry like a baby!

Make today a great one!

to be a morning person!  I need to get to the gym in the morning to add strength training to my routine.  Luckily, I have the lovely Janetha as my coach – whether she knows it or not!  I’ve printed out some of her workouts to do as soon as hit publish, I am out the door!

Breakfast was a black bean/red pepper/egg beater burrito with delicious blackberries on the side!  Breakfast comes in at 310 calories, 40 carbs, 26 protein, 6.9 at and 18.9 fiber!! 😀

I tested my blood sugar before our 45 minute walk and it was 136 – I need it to be a bit higher so I don’t crash, so I ate half of an orange.  Am I the only one who eats an orange like this??

It was a good thing I did, because it was 54 when we got back!!  For lunch I adapted a version of Alison’s Peanut Soba Noodle Chicken Salad:

Soba Noodle Chicken Salad (printer friendly version here)

Makes 1 serving:  346 calories, 34 carbs, 33 protein, 8.5 fat and 3.0 fiber

Salad Ingredients

Dressing Ingredients

Directions

Poach chicken. Let cool. Chop vegetables and chicken and toss with my soba noodle dressing.

dressing ingredients

I paoched my chicken in jalapeno flakes

then mixed the sauce together until i got an alien shape in my bowl

delicious!

On the side I had 1/2 a container of Chobani with honey and 1/2 an apple.  Lunch comes in at 486 calories, 61 carbs, 42 protein, 9.7 fat and 6 fiber.

It was a gorgeous day to grill!

I had steak, grilled zucchini and I baked some potatoes.

My plate: 5.5 ounce baked potato, with 1 tbsp. I can’t believe its not butter, zucchini with balsamic dressing and3 ounces of steak.  Dinner comes in at 384 caloires, 42 carbs, 32 protien, 10.8 fat and 7.2 fiber.

My blood sugar was on the low side, so I had these snacks.  It was still low so I ended up eating 3 squares of the bacon chocolate!!  It was a crisis – luckily I had it on hand! 😀  I won these snacks from Michelle 😀

Then I had another apple  – this type is called Pacific Rose – so sweet!

The verdict of the bacon chocolate? It’s good – it has crunchy bits of bacon, but the dark chocolate overpowers the bacon – still, while I wouldn’t search it out again, I wouldn’t kick it out of bed for eating crackers!  My snacks for the day came in at 409 calories, 49 carbs, 5.5 protein, 25 fat and 7.8 fiber.

And I won more loot!  I won Natasha of 5-Star Foodie’s National Garlic giveaway and came home to these wonderful products:  Thanks Natasha and New York Style!

Stats for Monday:

• 20 minute Yoga for beginners
• 15 minutes Yoga abs
• 45 minute walk at lunch
• 10 minute walk with dog after dinner
• 1,589 calories, 192 carbs, 105 protein, 52 fat and 40 fiber! 😀

I got an A! 😀

Off to hit the gym!!  Are you a morning person – have you always been?

to mark your calendars for yesterday.  Because that is the day that not only did I do all the laundry – I dried it, and get this!  I actually folded it all and put it all away! You see, I am the type of person who throws laundry in, realizes two days later that I actually washed laundry, it kind of smells since its been sitting for two days, then washes it all over again.  But that time I’ll remember to put it in the dryer – only to realize two days later that the black pants I’ve been looking for are now all wrinkled from sitting in the dryer – then I end up damping a towel wet, throwing that in the dryer hoping that it will take the wrinkles out so I don’t have to iron! 😀

I know April will be proud of me – but I am only doing laundry for two – not her huge family!  For the record, Hannah’s hated how I’ve done laundry since about the age of 8, wherein she took the responsibility of washing her own clothes. 😀

Breakfast yesterday was a low carb wrap, 1/4 cup egg beaters, sauteed red pepper, two slices of center cut bacon and 1 cup of blackberries.

It was an icky day outside – kinda cold, sprinkly – but a perfect day to stay inside to cook!  I made a chicken soba noodle salad for my lunch today (you’ll have to come back tomorrow for that recipe!) 😀  Later in the week I am making a Korean spicy tofu stew, but wanted to accessorize it somehow.  My idea was to make wontons on the side, but my grocery store only had egg roll wrappers – so egg rolls it became!

Chicken and Vegetable Egg Rolls (Each Egg Roll: 197 calories, 3.4 fat, 27.7 carbs, 1.3 fat and 13.2 protein.

Ingredients  (printer friendly version here)

Directions

1. Cook ground chicken breasts until cooked through. Remove and let cool.
2. Once cool – add all ingredients to food processor and chop until course. Fill each wonton wrapper with 3 ounces of mixture.
3. Seal with water and deep fry until golden brown – about 3 minutes.

it wasn't spicy enough, so I added dots of sriracha!

Then I added the cooked ground chicken and water chestnuts, and just pulsed until coarse.

It just so happened that my filling weighed in at 27 ounces, so I divided by 9 egg rolls, so each egg roll got 3 ounces of filling.

Start by putting your filling in the bottom 1/4 of wonton wrapper – be sure to wet the sides before rolling up – this way it won’t split in the fryer.

It took me about 5 minutes to wrap all 9.

Because our deep fryer holds the perfect temp, these were not greasy at all – they only cooked for about 3-4 minutes total.

I cooked them in batches of three – you don’t want to overcrowd, otherwise the temperature drops and that’s when you’ll get greasy food.

let rest on paper towels

so crispy 😀

Since I had such a late breakfast, one of these egg rolls became my lunch!  I drizzled with Thai Garlic sauce – only 5 calories a tablespoon!  Have you tried to make your own egg rolls before?

delicious!! crispy on the outside, tender and spicy on the inside!

So for dinner I did end up making my blackened chicken pizza!!

For the sauce:  1/4 cup tomato sauce, mixed with 1 tablespoon Green jalapeno Tabasco and 1 diced pickled jalapeno chopped:

I diced up half a link of this sausage:

I sauteed 2.4 ounces of the blackened chicken and since the sausage was already cooked, just put that on in the last minute to heat it up.

I decided to make a whole wheat version of my no rise pizza dough:

• 2 cups whole wheat flour
• 1 cup warm water
• 1 package yeast
• 1 teaspoon salt

This made a one pound loaf, so I divided it into four sections – one for my pizza last night and then refrigerated the other three for most likely breakfast pizza later in the week! 😀  Each 4 ounce portion is 233 calories, .7 fat, 48 carbs, 2.1 fiber and 7.1 protein.

I decided to top with cheddar cheese instead of mozzarella, and added 1/4 cup canned black beans – before going into oven:

Done!

can I tell you how much I loath our flourescent lighting in our kitchen?

I then shredded some lettuce for the top.  At first I didn’t think it was spicy enough, but the extra kick from the sausage did the trick!

My pizza for one: 392 calories, 56 carbs, 44 protein, 19.9 fat nd 5.2 fiber

And later in the evening I snacked on one ounce of peanuts while watching Celebrity Apprentice – its our one reality t.v. show guilty pleasure!

170 calories, 6 carbs, 7 protein, 14 fat and 2 fiber

Stats for Sunday:

• no exercise, unless you call laundry exercise! 😀
• 1,345 calories, 126 carbs, 87 protein, 58 fat and 26 fiber

Did you know a cup of blackberries has 8 grams of fiber??

I have to apologize to Alisa at One Frugal Foodie – she was the hostess of BSI this week, but the week kind of got away from me – sorry Alisa – thanks for hosting this week!

Alright – I am off to do yoga on the DVR!  Yeah me for getting up so early!

Have a great Monday!  Don’t forget, you have until Wednesday morning to enter my 250,000 page view giveaway.   Can I say how much I love people like goat cheese on pizza??  I may have to do that this week! 😀