What a stormy day we had yesterday!  It was so windy yesterday morning, I told Hannah not to go to school – she drives through some open roads through farms to get to school – there were tornado warnings.  The power flickered on and off a few times before I left for work.

At 9:30, Tony called me to say our power was out – it didn’t come back on until 4:15 in the afternoon!  Tony and Hannah went to Buffalo Wild Wings – I kept getting texts from both of them saying how bored they were!

I had the last of my bagels for a bagel sammie:

I had plans of walking on the treadmill with a medicine ball – only problem was the last machine with a t.v. on it was broken.  So I ended up doing a 7 mile bike ride on the bike machine.  I went to turn on my iPod, no juice 😦  Luckily I could plug my headphones into the bike machine – I listened to some of the most eclectic music!  From Prince, to Meatloaf, to Led Zepplin.

The ride was hard so I told myself “don’t look down.”  I am usually obsessed with how far I have to go, if I am ahead or behind the pacer bike or my ghost rider.  I just pushed it as hard as I could and ended up getting a PR on this race by 15 seconds, and I beat the pacer bike by 2 minutes!

This is how the sky looked when I went to the gym – parts would be blue sky, then huge clouds.

I have my co-worker Renee to thank for our lunch yesterday.  I am lucky that she and I have the same tastes – what my family wouldn’t touch with a ten foot pole, Renee will happily take what they won’t eat.

She saw a show on Cooking Channel – it was a Canadian show called Healthy Gourmet. One of the recipes that jumped out at her was a recipe for Spaghetti Squash Pasta with Chicken Meat Sauce.  I adapted the recipe by adding a bit of red wine, oregano and a bit more pumpkin.

Chicken Bolognese with Pumpkin (printer friendly version here)
Makes 4 servings (250 calories, 4.7 fat, 11.7 carbs, 3.6 fiber and 37 protein)

Ingredients

1	pound chicken breast
2	cloves garlic
28	ounce canned tomatoes
1/2	cup pumpkin
1/4	cup red wine
1	teaspoon crushed red pepper
1	teaspoon oregano
1	pinch salt
1	pinch pepper

Directions

1. Put chicken breasts into food processor and grind. Add chicken to hot pan with a scant amount of oil – cook until half done – add remaining ingredients and simmer for 30 minutes.
2. If you don’t like chunky tomatoes, puree the tomatoes in the food processor before adding to chicken.
3. Serve over cooked spaghetti squash.

Okay, so maybe this picture isn’t the most appetizing, and happened to be what Hannah saw as she was walking into the kitchen.  I believe her words were “I’d rather eat dog shit.”

But it is delicious!!!  The crushed red pepper is a nice balance to the slightly sweet pumpkin – but seriously, if I didn’t know there was pumpkin in there, I wouldn’t know!  I had this with a slice of 100 calorie garlic bread.

I was glad that the power was back on by the time I got home.  I had pork chops on the menu, but Tony wasn’t feeling it, so I ended up making fried chicken breasts, mashed potatoes and canned green beans.

For the chicken, I just dipped chicken breasts in an egg/milk misture then dipped in seasoned flour and then repeated that step.  While the deep fryer was coming to temperature, I put the breasts in the freezer – the coating stays on better that way.

My chicken needed a bit of a kick – Buffalo Wild Wing Spicy Sauce!

I should have only cooked one chicken breast – both of us could only eat half!

Stats for Monday:

• 1351 calories, 135 carbs, 124 protein, 36 fat, 16 fiber
• 25% of calories from fat
• 7 mile bike ride in 29 minutes – 11 minute cool down
• 5 minutes abs on the ball

I have the day off today to go to a doctor appointment with Tony – I’ll catch up with you guys tonight! 😀