Wow – thank you!

Thanks for all your wonderful, heart felt comments yesterday! (and Twitter shout outs!) As I was sitting in the waiting room waiting for Tony to have his procedure, every time I heard the “ding” of another comment, it felt as if I was getting a virtual hug from you!

Some good news!  The tumor will be removed with surgery within the next two weeks.  We aren’t quite out of the woods yet, as he still needs to get more blood work done and get a body scan to make sure the cancer hasn’t spread, but the train is in motion to just get the cancer out.  Can I tell you Tony was concerned that he might be in the hospital during the Super Bowl and was worried about not having football food?!  😀   At least our shitty Bears (Cutler has to go!) won’t be in the Super Bowl!

So over the weekend I did what I normally did – which was be bizzy in my kitchen.  It helped me keep my mind off of everything else going on.  I had one banana and exactly 1 ounce of roasted pecans, so banana pecan pancakes were born.  These are super easy because I used Bisquick for the batter.  While these are on the high side per pancake, when I put them on my points tracker, 3 is 11 points, not 12 and I had this as breakfast and lunch.

Banana Pecan Pancakes 

Course: breakfast
PointsPlus™ Value:    4
Servings:  12

Preparation Time:  5 min
Cooking Time:  25 min
Level of Difficulty:  Easy

Ingredients
1 large banana(s)
1 oz pecan halves, finely chopped
2 cup(s) pancake mix, dry
1 1/4 cup(s) fat-free skim milk
1 Tbsp sugar
1 Tbsp vegetable oil

Instructions

Heat oven to 250.
Mix all ingredients together until well combined.
Pour batter into a pan with Pam using a 1/4 cup measure . Flip after 2-3 minutes, or when bubbles start forming on the top. Cook 2-3 more minutes on second side.
Place cooked pancakes on baking sheet in oven until finished making all the pancakes.

I thought these were delicious – every other bite had a banana or pecan – yum!

I took our dog for a couple walks.  Unfortunately he’s getting so old, about 10 minutes is all he can handle before he’s spent – the distance between our house and the river.  It’s frozen over and people snow mobile over it – scares the crap out of me because there are spots that don’t freeze over because of the current.  Luckily there haven’t been any deaths on the river in the last few years.

We decided to make sub sandwiches for the Bears game.  I absolutely love our local deli – I think I ordered 10 different kinds of meat and cheeses.  Tony left me at the deli – he thinks its rude to the other customers to order more than three things at a time at the deli – me?  I have no problem asking for 10 things!

And I went to Weight Watchers on Sunday morning.  I got my 5 pound loss sticker – and a Bravo sticker for handing out a recipe 😀

I am really trying NOT to emotionally eat while we are going through this.  When we got back from the hospital yesterday, I immediately put my work out clothes on a did a 40 minute boot camp on exercise on demand – it was nice to get sweaty!

Dinner was easy – my simple stuffed peppers.  I use 1/2 pound ground sirloin, 1/2 pound Italian sausage (out of the casing), 8 ounces of tomato sauce, Italian seasoning, salt and pepper.  I brown the meat first, pour off any fat, add the tomato sauce and let it cook for about 10 minutes.  I blanch the peppers in boiling water (Tony likes soft peppers) then stuff the peppers, added 1/2 ounce of mozzarella cheese to the top of each pepper, then bake at 350 for 15 minutes, and finish it off under the broiler for a minute or two.  Each half pepper is 9 points.  I served mine on a bed of mixed greens.

I added crushed red pepper to mine for an extra kick 😀

Stats for Monday:

• 31 points
• 40 minute boot camp
• average blood sugar 122

Thanks again for all of your support – love the blogging community – we appreciate it!