My weekend was quite delightful.  It contained a workout, yardwork, hitting up my local grocer to celebrate TRIPLE coupons, cleaning the floors, reading by the pool, a nap, and watching 3 Netflix movies.  Really it was the perfect mix of being productive and lazy.  The weather was also perfection.  Sunny and 85.

Since I was having such a nice liesurely weekend I even remembered to do some picture taking!  Saturday I did well… Sunday not as much.  But here we go!

Saturday morning I took a page out of Kelsey’s book and made French toast for breakfast.  I still had some leftover whole wheat bread that I made a while ago in the freezer.  I figured it would make great french toast.  And it did!  I made my own blueberry syrup by putting a little real maple syrup and a few fresh blueberries in the microwave.  It was absolutely delicious!

My breakfast view

I ate lunch at the POOL!  So I packed up a bunch of healthy stuff to bring while lounging.  I made a salad with mixed baby greens, cukes, tomatoes, scallions (my new obsession) and feta.  I topped it with some home made chicken salad (chicken, light mayo, diced apples, soy sauce).  I also packed some fruit salad (watermelon, strawbs, blueberries and raspberries).  Pita chips, a pudding, dressing and 2 reeses for good measure. 

I’m happy to say I only ate the salads!!

This has nothing to do with eating — but I’d like to now take a moment to look at my pretty Gerber Daiseys.  I have a pot of them outside and brought these two in to enjoy in the kitchen.  They make me obscenely happy.

After the pool I was hungry and didn’t know what I wanted.  I settled on a toasted Arnold Sandwich Thin with a little butter.  Simple.  But delicious.

An hour later I was still hungry and hot and wanted something refreshing.  I opened the freezer and was stared down by a box of Bryers Light ice cream sandwiches.  I couldn’t say no.  I grabbed one and ate it happily.  (This is where things start going downhill).

I watched 2 or 3 movies and around 8 realized I needed to eat dinner.  I opened up the pantry and remembered a total  impulse buy I’d made at Target two days before.  I got FOUR, yes FOUR boxes of Kraft Mac N Cheese.  )They were all sold together in one package.)  Yes, the kind that has the powdered orange cheese and everything.  It was on clearance (I know, that should have been my first clue) and the box boasted Whole Wheat!  So I caved and bought it.  It wasn’t until I was putting it away at home that I noticed the fine print saying “50%” right before Whole Wheat.  Ahh well such is life.  I cooked a box up and had a little less than a serving.  I should mention that I had lofty goals to add chicken and broccoli to this but decided against it because I was feeling lazy.  This meal was delicious.  And if you’re judging this meal… just wait til I get to Sunday’s dinner!

Sunday started very much the same as Saturday.  Except about 3 hours later.  Yes, I slept in until 10:30 on Sunday.  Talk about heavenly!  I made french toast again.  But my blueberry syrup didn’t come out quite as well.  Super watery.  Still delicious though!

I didn’t photograph anything else until dinner.  And this one is a doozy.  I was watching a Lifetime Original Mini Series (all 4 hours of it) and someone was eating waffles in the movie.  Or maybe there was a commercial for waffles.  Or perhaps I was reading a blog and someone had waffles.  Where the idea popped into my head I don’t quite remember.  But I saw the waffle and thought – I want that!  And I had been thinking about ordering pizza, so this seemed like a much better option.  So I paused said movie and whipped up a batch of Bisquick waffles.  I wish I had a picture of the perfect waffles, but alas I don’t.  But they were some of the prettiest I ever made.  After I had the batch all made and I was prepping my plate I realized that I had Bryers fat free vanilla ice cream, strawberries and fat free redi whip in the fridge.  And just like that my waffle dinner turned into waffles a la mode for dinner/dessert.  And let me tell you it was heavenly!  I sat in my big cozy chair, watching a lifetime mini series, eating this decadent ‘dinner’ and couldn’t be happier.  I think I may have even giggled to myself at some point because it made me that happy.  Behold heaven in a bowl.

And thus completes my weekend of eats.  Now go make some waffles, or buy frozen ones and top them with all kinds of sugary goodness.  Trust me, you’ll be happy you did!

I’ve been wanting to make soft pretzels from scratch for a while now.  I found a recipe online about 3 months ago.  Last week I finally found the time to make them!  It was a lot easier than I anticipated and they were delicious!

I used Alton Brown’s recipe found here.  The only change I made was using whole wheat flour.  I didn’t plan on doing that but when I opened up my pantry that’s all I had!  I followed everything else and they came out quite delicious.  I highly suggest trying these on a rainy day.  You won’t be disappointed.

Here are some pictures from the bake-fest.

Dough Ball

Doubled Dough (after 45 minutes)

Boiling pretzel for 30 seconds before baking

Going into the oven

Cooling... it took a lot not to dive right in!

Yes, I did break off one of the nubs. I couldn't resist!

I’m desperately trying to get back in the habit of taking pictures of my food! I start off good most days and get breakfast… but that’s generally as far as I get. I was just cleaning off all the pictures on my camera and decided instead of just deleting all of those breakfast pictures (and a few lunches thrown in for good measure) I’d post them anyway. I mean sure it’s kind of pointless, but at least I feel as though those pictures weren’t total wastes! And perhaps this will help me really get back in the swing of things. Because really — it’s been since March 20th that anyone has posted here.

Top row: My favorite tea (Nutcracker Sweet); Special K protein plus with strawberries; Flying Biscuit Oatmeal pancake and a protien shake
Second row: Quaker Simple Harvest multigrain hot cereal; An oaty mix w/ pb and a bluberry muffin on top; Apple and my new P Chef apple corer
Third row: Protein shake; crinkle cut cucumbers w/ fat free balsamic (so pretty!); TJs tomato basil soup
Bottom row: a chocolate truffle (drool); fat free popcorn w/ M&Ms (don’t knock it until you’ve tried it!); more cereal w/ strawberries

So there you have it!  The 12 pictures I took in over a month.  Here’s to getting back in the habit!  (Everytime I post that I think of Sister Act II – Back in the Habit.)

I’ve been terrible about taking pictures throughout the day… but I HAVE taken a few here and there.  They’re mainly from breakfast (I start the day with great intentions you see), but figured instead of just deleting them I’d post them for kicks.  Because I really have nothing better to do at work right now!

The end.  Happy Weekend!

If I didn’t get in all of my fruits and veggies yesterday then I never will!  I tried really hard to make it happen!  I have no trouble with fruit, but I just don’t like vegetables.  Yes, I am 6 years old.  Here’s the menu rundown!

- 2 Fiber One Waffles w/ PB2 and banana
- hot tea
- 2 oreos (woops)
- carrots, celery, cukes, hummus, strawberries, grapes, turkey peperoni, kashi crackers, tomato basil soup
- yoplait thick n creamy lemon meringue
- glass of milk w/ 1tbsp ovaltine (not pictured)
- pasta w/ sauce (containing hidden veggies), and parm cheese
- sugar free jello snack, 1/2 graham cracker, cool whip light
- 1 lemon chiffon girl scout cookie

I decided to attempt to make dinner last night.  By this I mean throw some stuff on the stove to make a meat sauce and boil some water for pasta.  This is big for me as I generally get home from work and boot camp and want a lean cuisine or something equally as easy.

I haven’t been much in the mood for veggies lately but decided to puree a bunch of stuff I had in my crisper to throw in the sauce.  If it’s pulverized I can generally get it down.  I had tons of spinach, some tri colored pepers and an onion.  Into the food processor they went…

…and out it came!

I added this to some lean ground beef that I browned up on the stove

After that I just added some jarred Marinara sauce as well as a can of taomta sauce.  I decided to add some more flavor by adding garlic powder and some spices.  Right when I was getting ready to spice things up my brother called.  We were chatting on the phone and I grabbed the basil and started shaking the bottle like mad over my sauce.  About 5 shakes in I realized it was not basil, but in fact NUTMEG!  EW!  I quickly cursed a bit, explained to my confused brother what was going on, and got off the phone.  I was able to scoop out most of the tainted sauce and continued with dinner prep.

Because of the green veggie purees this sauce had a brownish color, but was still delicious.  Here’s the finished meal.  Pasta, nutmeg-less sauce, and some low fat parm

I’ve been a total slacker with Krissie’s challenge.  But I’m back today and that’s all that matters.  I’ve got all my eats from yesterday and have been photographing today’s as well.  Score one for me!

I live in the south.  Charlotte, NC to be exact.  And we got more snow yesterday than I’ve seen since I’ve lived here!  It’s March!  I’m supposed to be dusting off my flip flops and sporting long sleeve t-shirts outside!

I’m just doing a menu and then a cluster of pictures again today.  I think it looks fun… and really sometimes I don’t feel like reading I just want to look at pictures!  So here you go…

Things I ate…
big bowl of cereal w/ strawbs and bananas (at home due to snow!)
turkey and cheese on light bread (with a pickle), strawberries, 2 clementines
2 spoonfuls of pb from the jar (only 1 is pictured)
cherry cobbler yoplait light (I scarfed it down and remembered I didn’t take a picture so I grabbed a different flavor out of the fridge shhh)
cukes and carrots with hummus (at while preparing dinner… the remainder of this is on my dinner plate as well
1 scrambled egg, 2 98% fat free turkey dogs, sandwich thin, and a slice of cheese (SO good)
edys thin mint ice cream (I realized I still had a crapload of calories to eat for the day.. so ice cream it was!)
lots of hot tea while watching Jack Bauer

There are also 2 superfluous pictures from the day.  One of the snow and one of me and the pups playing in the snow.  I just needed 2 more pictures to make the columns even.  I’m anal like that

Wow. Why have I been buying pizza? Making it at home is so incredibly easy, and delicious. And in the interest of health you can tweak ingredients to your own needs. Excellent. For this pizza I used :

* Trader Joe’s Whole Wheat Crust (only $.99!!)

* Hunt’s tomato sauce – I added some garlic powder and basil

* 2% mozzarella cheese

* red peppers and mushrooms (sauteed for 5 minutes before going on the pizza)

* goat cheese, the star ingredient

The hardest part is rolling out the dough, I still haven’t gotten the hang of it. I’ll have to keep practicing I guess! This pizza was so delicious!

Stoup is Rachael Ray’s cross between a stew and a soup, and all of her stoups are delicious. My favorite one is the Double Chicken Dumpling Stoup. It is heart warming and oh-so-tasty. Also very, very easy to make! I highly recommend it. To lighten it up, I use lean ground turkey. I also bulk up the veggies a lot, just because I love them!

Keeping up with the Official Questions for Dessert Food Journal Challenge… I snapped pictures of everything I ate yesterday.  Note… you will again see no candy!  That’s right, day 3 of being candy free at work and home.  But oh how I miss you chocolate!  (Doesn’t help that a big jar of M&Ms stares at me all day long at work!!)

Yesterday it finally felt like spring might actually come one of these days!  It was sunny and a beautiful 60 degrees out.  It was perfect workout weather!  And I have had these sitting on my desk all week (which isn’t helping my spring fever at all!)

A lot of what I ate yesterday is repeats from stuff I’ve eaten earlier in the week.  What can I say I just don’t want anything to go bad!  Breakfast was a 3 mix of cereal again.  I finished up the Kashi Crunch so I need to find another cereal to mix in!  I had a very ripe banana that I cut up on top.  This guy was literally on his last legs but super flavorful!


I had a little bowl of strawberries for a snack.  Super sweet, though not that filling.  Bummer.

I was seriously craving some chocolate after this.  I hit up the pantry instead (I should note that the contents are a bit different these days.  I’m out of soup AND there is no massive box of chocolate in there anymore), and ate a big spoonful (ok it was a fork) of peanut butter.  Right out of the jar.  A delicacy if you ask me!

The pb held me over quite well!  I didn’t eat my lunch until around 2:30!  It was a turkey sandwich again with apple slices in it and on the side.

I skipped all of my planned afternoon snacks since I was still full and didn’t eat again until right before boot camp.  I had a serving of Kashi TLC crackers and a low fat string cheese.  I had to get everything in bit size pieces since I ate this bad boy in the car.

For dinner I stopped at Quiznos!  I had a coupon for a free sub… I got a small Honey Bourbon Chicken sandwich on wheat bread… but with turkey instead of chicken.  (Something about chicken at places such as that irks the heck out of me!).  I also went crazy and had a bag of baked lays with it.  And Quiznos pickles are the best!  I snatched some of them for a side item as well.

I’m watching Arleigh (my ex)’s dog this weekend.  Since she was partially my dog for just over 2 years it’s great to have her around again.  Anyway, I met up with Arleigh and well I got all kinds of treats to go along with the pup!  Including the most amazing oatmeal chocolate chip cookies (the picture doesn’t do them justice).  Oh my… I think her new girlfriend may just be trying to make me fat!  haha.  These are incredible!!  I will be begging for the recipe as soon as they get back from their trip.  I had 2 for dessert last night… and it was tragically hard to stop at 2!

After that it was catching up on TV (I’m SO bummed about the Top Chef winner!!) and bed!