Thanks to everyone who entered my Blog’s 5th Birthday Giveaway!  I loved seeing where you all live!  The winner is. . .

Min: 1  Max:  99   Result:56

Brooke: Not on a Diet

Happy Blog Birthday to you! How awesome! It’s fun to look back and see how it all started and how horrible the posts were.

I’m from Illinois (which you knew) and side note, I’m going to be up your way next weekend. I’m not 100% sure of my agenda, but maybe there can be a beer or two shared between us.

Congratulations Brooke!  I will email you later today!

And speaking about numbers. . . I got the results back from my last diabetes blood draw.  My A1C is . . .  5.9 and my cholesterol, triglycerides and HDL are all . . . NORMAL!   Needless to say, my doctor was pleased and so am I.   While it sucks to have the sugars, it is a manageable disease, it just takes dedication.

I feel like I could have used an extra day today just to sleep.  I did sleep in Saturday morning – 10:00 a.m.  I had a few errands to run and since my store didn’t have a sale flyer in the newspaper, I went to pick up something just for dinner on Saturday night and planned to menu plan yesterday.  Um, no sale paper.  They said “you’ll just have to see what’s on sale when you walk around the store.”

Huh.  That’s not how I shop – I base my meals on what meat is on sale.  So I took a look when I picked up our sirloin tip roast and made some notes.  They also had tomatillos on sale for .39 cents a pound.  This salsa is a winner – TONS of cilantro!

Tomatillo Salsa

• 1 pound of tomatillos, husks removed
• 1 cup of cilantro
• juice of 2 limes
• 3 garlic cloves
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 to 1 jalapeno – depending on how hot you want it
• that’s it

I grill the tomatillos and jalapeno just like the baja fresh salsa.   Then just throw everyone into the food processor pool and whirl away.

Holy yum.  I brought this to Tony to show him how green it was and he said “it smells like the devil’s farts.”  Our neighbor came over while we were grilling so I brought the homemade chips and salsa out and after one bite he said “this is outstanding.”  Tony just turned his nose up to It – too much cilantro for him!

I took a 50 minute walk on Saturday – it was a beautiful day, and just starting to get cloudy on my way back home.

While I was walking, Tony went to pick me up . . . pumpkin beer.  I’ve been seeing it everywhere on Instagram and Facebook!  This one is a winner, which isn’t a big surprise because I love their Fat Tire beer.  This one has cranberry notes too – so I wouldn’t say it’s very pumpkiny, but it is a delicious fall beer.

It was dark out by the time our roast was done – it’s getting dark so early!  It was delicious – just garlic, salt and pepper.

I had a work event last night, so I had to make cookies to wrap up as a thank you give away at the end of the event.  I am not much of a baker, so when I saw Martha Stewart’s Mexican Hot Chocolate cookies – I was sold.  Well, that and the two sticks of butter per batch of cookies!

They turned out great – slightly chewy in the middle but a bit of a crunch.  The only think I left off was the cayenne pepper that they called for in the cinnamon sugar mix – while I loves the spicy shit, I know not everyone does.  See how nice I am?

And since Tony had to accompany me to my work event, um, let’s just say he was a bit bummed that it interfered with his beloved football Sunday.  At least the Bears played at noon, but I guess they kind of sucked ass.  I actually picked the Lions to win because I didn’t think they could go 4-0.  Anywho – football food was my choice because Tony didn’t care what I made.

Pig’s in a blanket!  So simple.  Heat oven to 375.  Unroll the crescent rolls.  Put half a slice of American cheese and half a hot dog and roll it up.  I made an egg wash of 1 yolk with a teaspoon of water.  Brushed the tops with the egg wash, then sprinkled with poppy seeds.  Bake for 10-12 minutes until browned and serve with mustard.

I kind of have to remember that there are only two of us at home.   Maybe Tony might reheat the leftovers for lunch this week?

And before I knew it, I had to get ready for the work event – THIRD WEEKEND IN A ROW that I’ve put on makeup and had my hair down.  That is truly a record I think.

We didn’t get home until almost ten last night, so I feel like I could sleep a bit more because I got a second wind when we got home.  Oh well, hopefully the day will go by fast.

I have week 3 of my strength training – today is legs.  I need to pick up the intensity of my night time workouts, it felt last week that a couple days I was just going through the motions.  And wine crept back into my week so I have to ditch that this week.  150 is my goal to weigh on December 31 and drinking wine isn’t going to get me there.

Alright, off to pack my gym bag and throw my food together – new recipe tomorrow – black bean and barley chili!   Make it a great day!

I could not have been happier when 5:00 came yesterday.  It was a busy week at work, which I love, but I am glad the week is over.

I love these tortillas – I stole this picture off google images, didn’t want you to think I was eating tortillas that should have been eaten by July of 2012.

I ended up making an egg white/ham/cheese breakfast burrito with a blueberry Chobani.

I was so busy at work I couldn’t work out.   I ended up bringing a serving of Tony’s cacciatore from the night before for lunch – all I did was saute one zucchini yesterday morning before work and added that to the dish – I think the flavors were even better the next day.

I talked to Tony and he asked what was for dinner.  Other than making him a wedge salad, I didn’t know what we had at home to make, when he suggested, “why don’t you pick up some sausage and pepperoni and make pizza?”  Music to my ears!  Long time readers know I may have a bit of an obsession with pizza.

http://mybizzykitchen.com/2011/10/02/best-deep-dish-pizza-recipe-ever-and-holiday-challenge-update/

http://mybizzykitchen.com/2011/08/08/how-to-make-homemade-frozen-pizza/

http://mybizzykitchen.com/2012/07/14/7-minute-shopping-and-slow-rise-pizza-dough/

http://mybizzykitchen.com/category/breadyeasttortillas/parmesan-garlic-pizza-dough/

http://mybizzykitchen.com/2011/12/28/weeknight-deep-dish-pizza-holy-shizz/

http://mybizzykitchen.com/category/pizza-2/no-rise-food-processor-pizza-dough/

http://mybizzykitchen.com/2011/06/28/grilled-pizza-success/

I think I may need a pizza intervention!  I google searched “my bizzy kitchen pizza” and I think there are about 50 links – ha!

When I got home I made a no rise pizza dough:

• 2 cups flour
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 tablespoon yeast
• 1 cup water

Mix until all the flour is combined.  Usually it’s ready to roll out at this stage, but it was a gorgeous night so Tony and I sat outside for an hour and had a couple drinks and caught up on the day.

So my dough rose for an hour.  When we came inside, I put move oven to 425 degrees.

That recipe above is dough for either two small six inch pizzas, or one large 14-16 inch pizza.  Mine was probably closer to 14 inches.  I rolled the sides in because I love a good crust on pizza.  When I went to pick up the sausage and pepperoni, I hit up the salad bar for spinach and green pepper for my side – just .57 cents worth.

Bake for 15-17 minutes.  I usually cook it on my pizza pan for the first 10 minutes in the middle of the rack.  Then I shake it off the pan and finish it off on the lower rack in my oven just on the rack – the crust is super crisp.

Shhh…..I may brush a tablespoon of melted butter on the crust when it comes out.

I took this picture this morning so you could see the crust – love all the air pockets.

When I entered my food in Calorie Count this morning, I realized my dinner was 1000 calories with the pizza and wine – oops!

Stats for the Day:

• 1855 calories, 164 carbs, 97 protein 14 fiber
• Calorie Count Grade – C+ for the alcohol, sodium, not enough carbs and not enough fiber
• no exercise

I am ready to meal plan this week, although I don’t think we did too bad this week – between the two of us I think we spent less than $20 at the store for odds and ends – not bad!  I am also going to workout today and tomorrow to make up for yesterday.

Don’t forget to enter my 5 year blog birthday giveaway – a winner will be picked on Monday.  Enjoy your weekend!

Wow, I can’t believe I started this blog five years ago!  Hannah was still in high school, my step-son Joe was still living here.  We’ve been through a lot these last five years: Tony beating colon cancer, Hannah graduating from high school,  and Joe getting married, just to name a few!

I have “met” so many wonderful people over the years, who I do actually consider my friends, even though we’ve never met in real life.  You all know who you are!  I never thought that having a blog would give me so much joy, but through all the ups and downs over the last five years, it was the one thing I could always control, and it’s been comforting.

I think the best thing about blogging is that this is my living diary and I love the fact that some day my future grandkids, great grandkids, etc., can read back about my daily life.  My grandma kept a diary but this is what it was like:

Monday.  Had bridge club.  Made chicken for dinner.  It was chilly.

Of course they’ll also see that I swear like a truck driver and sometimes show boob pics, but hey, that’s me!

So I thought I would do a Top Five Posts.

• My most viewed recipe, especially now that fall is here – My Buffalo Chicken Chili
• Recipe I’ve made most often from someone else’s blog – of course, my beloved Lasagna Soup!  (have you fucking made it yet??!!)  Even though I got the recipe from Suzie, next weekend I’ll get to meet the woman Suzie got the recipe from at my Beef Counsel weekend at the Wit Hotel!
• Who can forget my most controversial post – my, ahem, distain of Kath Eats!   For the record, I still can’t stand her.
• All the participants I got for the first 101 Day challenge – Rachel – I am still sorry about how big your picture is in this post – I really had no computer skills back then!  Can I just tell you that you and Dave are kicking ass in the weight loss/working out department – so proud of you guys!
• And this last one is a visual of quite possible the WORST picture of food I’ve ever put on this blog:

When I look back at some of my photography it makes me cringe just a tiny bit!  How anyone thought anything I cooked looked the least bit appetizing is beyond me.  I think that post was called “best oven fries.”  Kind of looks like I dropped them on the floor and scooped them back onto the plate.

I think this picture is much better of my Creamy Tortilla Soup:

So let’s celebrate these last five years with a giveaway!  I was so excited when the publishers of Nicole’s cookbook asked if I’d like two copies of Nicole’s book – one to keep and one to give away.  I jumped at the chance!  This was back in August and they said they wanted to do a “media blitz” around September 15.  Well that date came and went so I contacted them and their records showed the books were FedEx’d to me on August 18 – wtf – I never got them.   So they were gracious enough to send me two more and got them the day before yesterday.

I cannot wait to dive into this cookbook – so many good things – but you know I am proud of my baja fresh salsa recipe (with onions!) was mentioned in the book.  It’s one of the oldest recipes on the blog – September 8, 2008!

This is also one of her husband’s favorite salsas – you can check out his vlog here.  (And it was his birthday yesterday – happy birthday Mr. P!)

All you have to do is leave a comment telling me what state you live in (or country!) – that’s it – super easy.  No twitter, or liking on facebook, or rafflecopter – I am a simple person so it’s a simple giveaway.  I’ll announce the winner on Monday, September 30 – good luck!

So thank you to all of you who take time out of your busy lives to stop by and visit My Bizzy Kitchen.  I am a richer person because of all of you!

Hugs – now go make it a great day!