Sweet bread

I came home to warm bread in the bread maker. Awesome. Enjoying it with a glass of wine as I type this. Delicious.

Buffalo Chicken Pasta

Those of you who know me know that buffalo chicken dip is my go to meal.  When Tom is on night shift its one of my favorite things to make.  It's also my go to for when I need to bring a dish to a party.  So when Tom posted this recipe on my facebook wall I couldn't wait to make it.

Buffalo Chicken Pasta Bake

1 16 oz. box Penne pasta, cooked and drained
3 boneless, skinless chicken breasts; cubed and cooked
1/2-1 C. Franks Hot Sauce
1 C. Ranch dressing
... 1-2 C. Shredded cheese (Colby Jack or Cheddar)

1. Preheat oven to 350* and prepare a deep baking dish.

2. Mix together hot sauce and ranch. In separate bowl, mix chicken, pasta and cheese. Pour sauce over all and mix well.

3. Pour everything into prepared baking dish, sprinkle with cheese (if desired) and bake for 20-25 min.

Like these tips and ideas? Click the "share" button and share with your friends!http://www.facebook.com/letseat2 because I have lots more recipes there!

Check out my website too, where you can purchase the tools with which to prepare and serve these wonderful recipes - at http://www.pamperedchef.biz/Amandacooks4u

 

Here it is in all its cheesy deliciousness:

 

I seriously can't wait for lunch time tomorrow so I can eat this again.  Yummmmmmmmm!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

Well I lied...

So as soon as I say “Oh I’m doing so great.  Who needs a food diary???”  I fall off the bandwagon and start eating like crap.  There was a whole array of reasons/excuses for this… its report card time at school so I’ve been more stressed than usual.  Then we went to Mexico for a week for spring break.  The resort was all inclusive so we drank and ate all week long (banana mojito… delicious!  Crepe with nutella for breakfast everyday… sure, why not!).  Needless to say we did not stick to unprocessed foods on vacation.  Even before vacation, we ate a lot of fast food because we were trying not to buy too much food and then have it go bad while we were gone.  On top of all this I started taking fertility drugs and they made me gain back all the weight I had lost so it encouraged me to eat things like m and ms and cookies (if I’m going to gain weight on the medicine… might as well enjoy it!).  Oh yeah, and then we had a 3D shape party at school so I ate crap at that too:

Wait... thats actually from snack at class the night before the 3D shape party.  So not only did I eat this plate of food but then the next day I had baked lays (hexagon), cookies (circle) , and ice cream (sphere)... (yes I know... you want to be in my kindergaten class.  3D shape parties are awesome). 

 

On the trip home from Mexico I said at least 5 times to Tom that when we get home we need to get back on track.  The night after we got home we went to the movies, and although Tom made snide comments… I insisted on cookie dough bites and a blue Icee.  WHAT IS WRONG WITH ME???? (Although in my defense I only ate half the cookie dough bites and threw the rest away).

I have been a little better since the movies… I thought I took pictures of some meals from the past 24 hours but apparently my phone decided not to save them…

Yesterday for lunch I had a whole wheat wrap with tuna, spicy mustard, spinach, and cheddar cheese.  It was quick and easy and also DELICIOUS!!!  I will probably have the same thing tonight for dinner since Tom is at work.

This morning for breakfast Tom made scrambled eggs with peppers and spinach and cheddar cheese.  Yummm.  Eating healthy is delicious… and these past two meals have reminded me of that.  Time to get back in gear.  I think part of the problem is not taking the time to prep things for the week (but our weekends have been so jam packed it’s been impossible).  Tonight I’m going to make granola, hard boil some eggs and hopefully make chocolate chip cookies (I just need to look up how to substitute molasses for brown sugar).  I think having snacks on hand and easy to access will help get me back on track. Time will tell….

Some Food Observations

Ever since going unprocessed I am using a lot more:

Garlic: probably because it’s a great way to add natural flavor

Honey: sugar substitute

Oats: making my own granola, and using it as a substitute for breadcrumbs

Vegetables I don’t usually buy (like snap peas): we’re branching out from our old cook book- Campbell’s 30 min and under (yes I used to go page by page through this book) and trying new recipes.  It’s actually been a lot of fun.

Some pictures from the past week:

Omelets for dinner!  Thanks to not being able to eat meat on Friday’s during lent, and Tom being upset with me bc I asked him to make shrimp jambalaya but neglected to buy Cajun seasoning… we had omlets for dinner.  They were delicious.  Peppers, onions, and garlic.

On Saturday we had family game “night” at our house (we try to rotate each month and get the MD part of the family together).  Tom had to work at 3 pm so we did a game lunch instead of a game dinner.  I decided to make lots of dips since it was afternoon time.  We did lemon garlic hummus and veggies, French onion dip and chips and spinach and artichoke dip.

 

Seriously what did I do before I bought my food processer?  Oh yeah… I don’t think I told you that yet… I BOUGHT A FOOD PROCESSER.  AND I LOVE IT.  I knew I would love it because I loved borrowing my neighbors.  But now I have one of my very own.  Making dips was so easy.  I made the spinach dip and the hummus in about 30 minutes and that includes getting all the ingredients out and putting them away. 

On today’s agenda… using the food processor to make orange crushes: orange juice, ice and maybe rum.  Yummm.  Hopefully it will be delicious and we will have a yummy unprocessed summer drink.  I’m also thinking of trying it with lemon juice instead of orange (my favorite summer drink is lemonade and black cherry rum… but black cherry rum is processed).  Pics later this week!

Abandoning the Food Diary

Why you ask?  Well a couple reasons…

Most of what we are eating now is unprocessed.  Originally the food diary was a way of me having some accountability for sticking to things.  But now I’m doing pretty good.  Don’t get me wrong, I am still eating some processed things.  Like right now, as I type this, I am having breakfast : homemade bread with natural peanut butter, banana, coffee with half and half and stevia, and wait for it… banana but cake left over from a family birthday party- store bought not homemade.

Do I care that much about the cake?  Not really.  You win some, you lose some.  This cake is delicious and until it is gone I will probably continue to eat it.  Do I wish I had had the time and energy to make a cake instead of buying one?  Absolutely!  But life doesn’t always work out that way….

I will say that we probably eat unprocessed 75% of the time.  I’m ok with that ratio.  Like I’ve said from the beginning, I’m not going to stop going out with friends (in fact there is a crab pretzel from Looney’s calling my name after our football game this afternoon).  Going out definitely accounts for some of the 25% processed.  What I would like to cut out completely is the moments of weakness (especially at school) when I get a bag of chips from the vending machine even though I have a hardboiled egg in my lunch box.  Or kids birthdays!  I HAVE TO STOP EATTING KIDS BIRTHDAY CUPCAKES/CAKES.  There… so it is written so it shall be done (maybe).

The second reason for stopping the food diary is that it must be really boring to read.  I mean I have the same thing every weekday for breakfast/ morning snack (apples, peanut butter, yogurt, granola) and the same thing for afternoon snack (hardboiled egg, almonds, dark chocolate).  Dinners change a lot and lunches are usually just dinner leftovers.  I will try to do a better job of posting recipes and pictures of dinners. 

Food Diary 2-25 to 3-3

Date	Monday February 25. 2013
Breakfast	Coffee- with milk and stevia Apple with peanut butter
Morning Snack	Yogurt with honey and granola
Lunch	Burrito: Whole wheat shell Brown rice Black beans Ground turkey Cheddar cheese
Afternoon Snack	Hardboiled egg Dark chocolate with almonds
Dinner	Chicken Salad
Dessert

Date	Tuesday February 26. 2013
Breakfast	Coffee- with half and half and stevia Apple with peanut butter
Morning Snack	Yogurt with honey and granola
Lunch	Chicken with snap peas Apple
Afternoon Snack	Hardboiled egg Dark chocolate and almonds
Dinner	Crackers Cheese Pesto Green peppers
Dessert

Date	Wednesday February 27. 2013
Breakfast	Coffee- with half and half and stevia Apple with peanut butter
Morning Snack	Yogurt with honey and granola
Lunch	Egg salad Bread Apple
Afternoon Snack	Hardboiled egg Dark chocolate and almonds
Dinner	Salad ???  can’t remember
Dessert

Date	Thursday February 28. 2013
Breakfast	Coffee- with half and half and stevia Apple with peanut butter
Morning Snack	Yogurt with honey and granola
Lunch	Salad ??? Can’t remember
Afternoon Snack	Hardboiled egg Dark chocolate and almonds
Dinner	Cauliflower pizza Chips/dip Wine
Dessert

 

Date	Friday March 1. 2013
Breakfast	Coffee- with half and half and stevia Apple with peanut butter
Morning Snack	Yogurt with honey and granola
Lunch	Cauliflower pizza Apple
Afternoon Snack
Dinner	Hardboiled egg Dark chocolate and almonds
Dessert

 

Saturday and Sunday… In New York.  Not recording… it was a major cheat weekend (unless jello shots a jager bombs are unprocessed…).

 

 

Subway

Friday night involved too many margaritas… you don’t need to know the details but Saturday morning was rough.  Tom got home from the gym around 11 am and we went back to bed for a loooong nap.  We woke up around 1:30 and both of us were starving.  There was next to nothing in our fridge.  We had deli meat for sandwiches but no bread.  And since bread involves 3 hours in the bread maker that was out.  I also needed Gatorade.  Badly.  So we decided to go to subway for sandwiches and Gatorade.  I know, Subway is not unprocessed, but we figured it was the closest we would get with fast food.  Did I mention that I was starving at the time?

I thought the smarter choice would be to get turkey on wheat instead of the chipotle chicken and cheese I wanted.  By the time the guy behind the counter asked me what I wanted though, I went with the chicken and cheese.  Tom got a oven roasted chicken breast sandwich.  As we drove home we were discussing how the chicken was probably heavily processed and how gross that was.

Side note: I’m currently reading “The New Rules of Lifting for Women.”  The author has a diet plan in the book and one section is on food on the go.  The subway oven roasted chicken is one of the things he recommends if you have to get fast food.  Guess its not as bad as Tom and I thought.

Anyway… Subway did not have Gatorade but did have Vitamin water.  I got one.  When we got home I was reading the label.  IT’S SWEETENED WITH STEVIA!!!  What???  I was amazed.  Stevia is what we’ve been using a sugar substitute because its natural.  Awesome.  Obviously vitamin water has lots of other stuff in it, but I feel good about it was an option when I need a sports drink.