When Errign saw that I needed to find the K.C. Masterpiece buffalo marinade the other day, she emailed me and said “I have a bottle, wanna trade?”  Um, yes!  So yesterday I sent her canned jars of my baja fresh salsa, my grilled cherry salsa and a couple other goodies. 😀

When I got home I found her box.  But it looked like someone kicked it to my front door. 😦

Luckily the loot survived!

Thanks so much Errign!  I am going to be having buffalo chicken tacos for lunch today. 😀

As I was putting my breakfast together yesterday, I saw that I still had leftover pizza dough.  Um, how long has it been since I’ve had breakfast pizza??

• 2 ounces pizza dough (6 points)
• salsa spread for the base (1 point)
• 3/4 ounce cheese (2 points)
• 1/4 cup egg beaters (1 point)
• spinach and diced red pepper (0 points)

 

No working out at lunch yesterday – I went out!  We went to Moe’s Southwest Grill.  I love that they have their nutrition online.  I was able to “build” my lunch before I even got there.  First off, guess where all the calories are – in the tortillas!  Luckily, they have what’s called a “streaker” which is the guts of a taco without a shell.  Without ended up being 7 points – with the tortilla the tacos would have been 15!

I had the grilled chicken, black beans, lettuce, grilled green peppers, pickled jalapenos, a tiny scoop of rice and then about 5 points of chips for dipping – lunch ended up being 12 points – not too bad for fast food!

They also have a salsa bar – I went with a lime cilantro tomatilla salsa – I need to recreate this one!

I was talking to Tony in the afternoon and I remembered that I bought scallops over the weekend and hadn’t used them up yet.  Tony doesn’t like red sauce with seafood, so I thought I would make a white wine sauce and serve the scallops over crispy polenta.  Um, epic fail on the sauce – it took me about 45 minutes to make dinner, all because I kept having to start over on the sauce.

In the end I ended up making a simple brown butter sauce, and when I brought the plates to the table, I was like “sorry this didn’t work out.”  I get mad when dishes don’t turn out.

But guess what?  It was delicious!  I pam fried already cooked polenta so it was nice and crispy, seared the scallops that were just seasoned with salt and pepper, and then took 2 tablespoons of butter and cooked it with salt and pepper and a pinch of Parmesan cheese, and took it off the heat when it was light brown.  I spooned one tablespoon of butter over each plate – Tony’s plate was sans spinach. 😀

Dinner came in at 9 points. 😀

Hannah and I went to the gym after dinner – we had plans to play racquetball (sp?) but the courts were full, so we ended up swimming for 45 minutes and then hot tubbed.  Then we came home and watched “Are you fitter than a senior?”  where fit senior citizens competed against unhealthy teenagers – its on Discovery Health channel and it was amazing the impact these senior citizens had on these teens – they were crying leaving these families after only one week!

Stats for Wednesday:

• 31 points
• 45 minute swim
• average blood sugar 111

Tommorow I am grilling an all American picnic – coney island hot dogs, cheeseburgers, potato salad and homemade baked beans – the recipe is interesting – its got Blue Moon beer in it! 😀 

Has anyone made coney island hot dog sauce before – that’s the only part of the menu I am worried about!

I made it to bed by 10:50 the night before last – close to my curfew of 10:30. 😀  I set my alarm for 6:15 and as I lay my head down on my pillow to sleep, I just said “you get up when the alarm goes off.”  Guess what??  I did!  I was out of the house by 6:30 (note to self, make coffee before going to the gym!), and by 6:50 I was in the pool.

I swam for 40 minutes straight – a couple pauses to adjust my goggles, but pushed through.  I had a guy in the lane next to me, and the laps where we were head to head I pretended I was in the last leg of a race and I had to win.  When I pushed myself like that, I realized that sometimes its easy to go through the motions of exercising – and may be why my weight loss has been slow.

So I am making a promise to myself to go big or go home.  Push myself harder than I think I can this week, and see how that may effect my weigh in this week.  😀

My pre-gym workout was unphotographed 1/4 cup of frosted mini-wheats.  I also took 5 units of insulin – its weird, but if I wake up with a blood sugar of 120, and then exercise, when I am done it can be as high as the 350s!  So I have to eat something, take insulin, and it balances out – back home at 8:00 a.m. my blood sugar was 109.

After my swim I was going to hit the steam room, until I walked in and saw a women laying buck naked on one of the benches, and I felt kinda weird going in, and decided against it.  I’ve belonged to several gyms over the years, and in every one there are handfuls of women who have no problem blow drying their hair naked, putting on make up naked, stretching naked – no matter the body type.

While I had my lunch planned out, I ran out of time, so it was McDonald’s to the rescue – oatmeal with 1/4 cup of my homemade granola – 10 PointsPlus.

Although I reheated it when I got to work, and was surprised to see this sticker on the bottom.  I guess I thought the oatmeal was made to order, but I guess not?

The weather was picture perfect, although I forgot to add sunscreen, so I needed to wear a jacket on my bike ride.  OMG, this was a tough ride, 3/4 of the ride the wind was right in my face, and some of the hills I was going up so slow, I probably could have walked faster – but it felt good to finish the 8 miles in 50 minutes!

Lunch was soup and salad – I need to tweak the soup recipe a bit, so no recipe yet – that bowl is 5 points, and then a grilled chicken salad on the side for 5 more points.

I had pasta on the menu, but with gorgeous weather, I couldn’t pass up grilling, so yesterday morning I defrosted pork chops.  I went on Tastespotting, and found a recipe for Grilled Pork Chops with Garlic Lime Sauce.  Holla!  I did reduce the amount of oil though from the original recipe:

Garlic Lime Sauce – from Dine and Dish

Makes 8 servings – 1 tablespoon per serving for 2 PointsPlus

• 1/4 cup fresh lime juice
• 1 garlic clove, minced
• 1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes (up from 1/4)
• 1/4 cup olive oil (reduced from 1/3)
• 1/4 cup fresh cilantro (upped from 2 tablespoons)
• 1/4 teaspoon salt

Whisk together the lime juice, garlic, red-pepper flakes, and salt, then add oil in a slow stream, whisking well.  Whisk in the cilantro at the end so as not to bruise it.

I love the table the sauce is sitting 0n – Tony made it for us for a grilling side table and it really comes in handy. 😀

I made grilled rosemary potatoes on the side – this flat cast iron skillet really holds the heat, but I have to be careful the tots don’t burn.

My 5 oz. pork chop, tablespoon of sauce and rosemary potatoes comes in at 12 PointsPlus.

Holy cow, these chops were good -not only did I cook them perfectly (which is sometimes hard with thick chops) the sauce made this dish.  The perfect bite!

Some exciting news for My Bizzy Kitchen – Gourmet Live website wants to make my Grilled Cherry Salsa the recipe of the day in the near future!  I’ll be sure to post the link when I have it.  How fun is that? 😀

Updated:  Thank Jenn for letting me know it was up!

http://live.gourmet.com/2011/06/image-of-the-day-grilled-cherry-salsa/

And I also finally took advantage of a Living Social deal – I normally don’t because they are never convenient, but for $20, I got six 70 minute sessions at a yogo studio near my house.  Normally six sessions cost $75!  They have early Saturday morning sessions for beginners, so I think I will tie it in to my WW weigh in – I may just have to go the 7:00 a.m. meeting.

Stats for Tuesday

• 33 points
• 40 minute swim
• 50 minute bike ride
• average blood sugar 98 – nice!

I am having lunch out with my old WW work buddy and one of the secretaries from my office – and tonight is Hanging with Hannah night – we are going to the gym, but no froyo tonight. 😀  Make it a great day!

I didn’t want to get up yesterday morning.  I need to give myself a curfew – like 10:30 p.m. is when I should go to bed if I want to get up to get the gym the next day.  Um, yesterday I finally got out of bed at 7, and had to blog, shower, put food together in 60 minutes – a pretty tall order!

Breakfast was a 2pt. light bun, with egg beaters, ham, cheese and chopped romaine lettuce (I actually liked the crunch of the romaine!) with fresh blackberries and cantaloupe.  This whole mound of found was only 5 points. 😀

When I left for work it was rainy and kinda chilly, but by lunch time it was up to about 72 – so I decided to run!  Well, walk/jog/sprint is what I did.  I ended up doing a 5k in just under 40 minutes – not too bad!  Although I wear a fanny pack to run with – being diabetic means I have to travel with glucose tabs, my blood sugar test kit, my cell phone in case of emergency, and my iPod. 

On my last sprint, somehow the zipper that holds all my diabetic stuff got open and I could hear all my stuff fall on the ground – but I had already envisioned my finish line for my last sprint and continued on – then had to go back and pick my shit up – it takes a few minutes to pick up 40+ test strips on the ground – hopefully they are okay – they are expensive. 😦

I seriously may have this lunch every single day this week.  We ordered chicken fingers to bring home yesterday.  These are so good!  My guess is that each one is 5 points (if you think its more, let me know!).  My salad:

• 1 chicken finger (heated up in the toaster oven to recrisp) 5 pts
• romaine lettuce – 0 pts
• broccoli slaw – 0 pts
• apple – 0 pts
• 2 tablespoons dried cranberries – 1 pt
• 2 tablespoons light poppy seed dressing – 2 pts.
• splash of Tabasco to even out the sweetness of the dressing – 0 pts.

A super filling salad – what you see in this bowl is only half of what I ate – I didn’t have a bowl big enough!  Not bad for only 8 pts. 😀

Want to know how I know Tony is feeling better?  He met a friend out for beers last night – so happy he went out!  And that meant I was alone in my home.  That never happens!  I had caught up on all my Rachael Ray and America’s Test Kitchen episodes that were piling up on the DVR, then I grilled some chicken breasts and made a chicken breast sammie for dinner.  I now have more grilled chicken for lunches later this week. 😀

I just stacked my tiles from the grilled pizza in the corner – worked perfect!

Dinner comes in at 10 PointsPlus (um, the 4 pts. of chips and salsa I ate while watching t.v. sorta didn’t get photographed!)

So Sunday night, Tony and I decided to use unglazed quarry tiles to grill pizza, to sort of mock a pizza oven on our gas grill.  We bought them at Menard’s for .44 cents each.  We figured 9 would fit our gas grill.  Only one problem.  The tiles overhung so the lid wouldn’t close shut all the way, so the grill wouldn’t get hot enough.  Tony moved the tiles so it was four across and two deep – I just had to adjust the shape of the pizza to fit the tiles.

And I have Liv Life to thank for the pizza dough.   I use semolina flour when making ravioli, so had some on hand.  I think this is our new favorite dough!

Semolina Pizza Dough (courtesy of Liv Life)

• 2 teaspoons active dry yeast
• 2.5 cups white flour
• 3/4 cup semolina flour
• 1.25 cups warm water
• 2 tablespoons oil
• 1.5 teasoons sea salt (next time will add 1 tablespoon)

While the original recipe was made in a bread machine – I did it the old fashioned way – bowl, spoon and hands. 😀 

Mix the flours and yeast together.  Add remaining ingredients and when the dough starts to take shape (I did add about 2 tablespoons more water) I put it on my counter and kneaded it for about 5 minutes.  There is just something theraputic about kneading dough – I love it. 😀

I let it sit on the counter for an hour – while this could easily make 4 pizzas (at 11 points each), I just split it in half since Tony and I were splitting this.

We ended up putting half our grill on high – the other half on low.  We cooked the dough for about 7-8 minutes, turning half way, then put the toppings on and then put it to the cooler side until the cheese melted.

Our grill got up to 550-600 degrees – and like an idiot, I tried to put the toppings on, while the crust was on the grill – until Tony said “why don’t you just take the pizza off to add the toppings” – duh! 

Yep – this one was a winner for both of us – Tony liked the crust as much as I did, although the canned pizza sauce I bought was on the tangy side (which I love) so I will need to tweak that.  Maybe I can bring back Party Pizza Friday if I grill it!  (fingers crossed) 😀

I used cornmeal on the pizza peel to put the dough on the hot tiles and to take it off when it was done – I liked the added texture on the bottom of the dough. 😀

Half of this pizza was 18 points (11 points for the dough alone) but totally worth it – and the cherry peppers kicked it up a notch. 😀

I cannot wait to make this pizza again. 😀

Stats for Monday:

• 27 points plus
• 40 minute 5k run
• average blood sugar 131

Guess what? I am off to the gym to swim!  Make it a great day!

Let’s get to the fun stuff right away – to see who won my 550,000 pageview giveaway from Friday. 😀  And the winner is . . .

True Random Number Generator Min: Max: Result: 19   (um, 19 is my favorite number!)

Tony has been wanting to make me johnnycakes, which I aptly named Tonycakes. 😀  He adapted a recipe by adding chopped bacon and chopped fresh jalapeno. 

Tony Cakes – this makes 14 cakes at 4 points each

• 2 cups white cornmeal
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 4 tableless unsalted butter, melted
• 1 cup milk
• up to 1/4 cup boiling water to get the right consistency
• 4 slices of bacon, cooked and chopped
• 1 jalapeno, chopped

Combine the conrmeal, salt and butter together.  Add the milk and enough water to make a moist but firm batter.  Mix in the bacon and jalapeno.  Drop by large spoonfuls onto a hot griddle, flattening slightly with the back of the spoon.

The first bite my mouth expected pancakes, but its anything but the texture of a pancake.  His recipe said “serve with honey, or maple syrup.”  I reached for my sugar free Smucker’s syrup (best sugar free syrup in my opinion!) and this dish sang.  You get the salt from the bacon, the crunchy texture of the cornmeal, the sweetness from the syrup and then the bite from the jalapeno – so delicious – thanks for making breakfast Tony!

 Tony and I did our grocery shopping on Saturday, and of course my first order of business when we walk in is to see what’s on the dollar rack.  I lucked out with rainier cherries for $1.00!  I only had to throw out about six from this whole package.

I rewrote the recipe because this time I doubled the amount of cherries, lime juice/zest and cilantro.

Grilled Cherry Salsa

• 4 tomatoes, divided
• 1 jalapeno pepper
• 3 cloves garlic
• 2 cup cherries
• 1/2 cup fresh cilantro
• juice of two limes
• zest from two limes
• 1 tsp. kosher salt

I did this on my gas grill.  Just char three tomatoes, the garlic, jalapeno and cherries – it took me about 15 minutes at a temperature around 350.

Let the cherries cool, then pit the cherries and add all the ingredients to a food processer and puree.

I am really LOVING this salsa – the sweet heat combo is a winner. 😀

We also tried out a new sub shop on Saturday – I’d never heard about it before, but the lines have been long so we waited for it to die down a bit.

They actually hand sliced the meat as you ordered the sandwich – and it was pricey – Tony and I each got a regular sub and it was over $15 with tax.  And it was huge – I was only able to eat half of it, but the best part other than the quality of the meat?  Cherry pepper relish!  I am going to have to recreate that.

This was a great sub – I liked the bread better than Jimmy John’s and if any of you have a recipe for cherry pepper relish, please let me know!

And then we went to the Fundraiser for my friends BIL – although I read the flyer wrong – I thought it was from 11:00 to 1:00 p.m., so Tony and I got there around 12:15 . . . and knew no one, so we just had a nice lunch at the bar.  Um, turns out the flyer read 11:00 a.m. to 11:00 p.m.!  Oh well, I did get to eat 21 points of nachos:

And this place has the best chicken fingers. ever.  We didn’t eat them there, but brought an order home just to bulk up our bill for the fundraiser – maybe if I put one on a salad I can make it work into my lunches this week! 😀

And lastly, I want a tiny dog.  Like my SIL just got – his name is Brutus and he’s only 3 pounds!

Hope everyone had a great weekend?  Question of the day:  Tiny dog or big dog?  While I love our 70 pound black lab, I think a tiny dog would be fun too! 😀

Make it a great day!

While I took a short cut last week just asking the participants to update their week in the comments section, I got positive feedback from several of the participants that they liked being able to reply to someone’s comment, that I am sticking with it.

As you may have seen on my post yesterday, I finally reached my 10% goal, and am down 17.4 pounds since March.  Slow and steady wins the race. 😀  I also found a bunch of shorts and pants that I haven’t worn in a couple years – one pair of size 12 shorts are even too big. 😀

Participant Jacky is part of a CSA and for Father’s Day made strawberry cheesecake in a jar – perfect for a picnic – they looked amazing Jacky!

I belonged to a CSA in 2009 – but for the first several weeks I mostly got kohlrabi, and what they called “carrot bites.”  Really?

Satu joined our challenge, and since she doesn’t use scales, has decided that a picture is worth a thousand words – check out her weight loss in pictures here.  I just think its cool that I have a particpant who lives in Finland! 😀

My sister is still going strong in the exercise department – day 20 in a row of moving – keep it up Jenn!

Lori was bummed this past week because she stayed within her points, exercised, etc., and was up .9.  I will be the first to say, you can’t expect the scale to say what you want on the day you want – just keep on going and you’ll reach your goal – no giving up!  Send her some pep talks as we come into the 4th of July weekend – she’s kind of worried about the long holiday and all the food!

So how did your week go?  Are you on plan?  Try any new summer recipes?

Let us know!  Enjoy your Sunday – we have another beautiful day!